The dog becomes the repository of those model human properties that we have cynically ceased to find among humans. Where today can we find the full panoply of William Bennett's Book of Virtues-from Courage and Responsibility to Loyalty and Family Values-but in Lassie and Beethoven and Millie and Checkers and Spot?

Well named, Quotology contains everything you always wanted to know about quotations, quoters, quotees, quotation books, 'quoox' (quotations out of context), and their fascinating history.

The dogs in our lives, the dogs we come to love and who (we fervently believe) love us in return, offer more than fidelity, consolation, and companionship. They offer comedy, irony, wit, and a wealth of anecdotes, the "shaggy dog stories" and "stupid pet tricks" that are commonplace pleasures of life.

Dog love is not the special realm of childhood or of boyhood, no matter what the movies keep telling us. It is highly significant, I think, that at both ends of human life span the bond between human and dog speaks with an insistent clarity - if we have the ears to hear.

Jargon marks the place where thinking has been. It becomes a kind of macro, to use a computer term: a way of storing a complicated sequence of thinking operations under a unique name.

A study conducted by the State University of New York at Buffalo Medical School suggested that in times of stress a dog is likely to be more help in calming you down than a spouse or partner. Most dog owners can guess the reason why: dogs never judge us and never compete with us.

The dog becomes the repository of those model human properties that we have cynically ceased to find among humans. Where today can we find the full panoply of William Bennett's Book of Virtues-from Courage and Responsibility to Loyalty and Family Values-but in Lassie and Beethoven and Millie and Checkers and Spot?