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When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be.

Using a dog as a narrator has limitations and it has advantages. The limitations are that a dog cannot speak. A dog has no thumbs. A dog can't communicate his thoughts except with gestures.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent.

Every dog might wish to be Dog One, but like us, most dogs want membership in the group even more than they want supremacy over others.

You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.

I never do the cute thing with animals; they are interesting shapes. I just use their profile. Because German shepherds are so easily recognizable, they would fall outside my purview.

These days, many people are unwilling to see their dog as an animal. Let's face it: they are cute, but they will bite. Not only do I look at dogs as animals, I look at myself as an animal, which explains why, since I got my permit, I drive with my head out the window.