We might miss the sign or we may be unable to read the expression, but it is almost a contradiction in terms to say that a dog feels something but does not show it. What a dog feels, a dog shows, and, conversely, what a dog shows, a dog actually does feel.

Hardly any animal can look as deeply disappointed as a dog to whom one says "no."

Dogs never lie about love.

Animals are, like us, endangered species on an endangered planet, and we are the ones who are endangering them, it, and ourselves. They are innocent sufferers in a hell of our making.

After a lifetime of affectionate regard for dogs and many years of close observation and reflection, I have reached the conclusion that dogs feel more than I do (I am not prepared to speak for other people). They feel more, and they feel more purely and more intensely.

We need cats to need us. It unnerves us that they do not. However, if they do not need us, they nonetheless seem to love us.

Every time I told my cocker spaniel, Taffy, my very first dog, that we were going for a walk, she would launch into a celebratory dance that ended with her racing around the room, always clockwise, and faster and faster, as if her joy could not be possibly contained. Even as a young boy I knew that hardly any creature could express joy so vividly as a dog.