The fact that dogs are not people means you don't have as much response to the particulars.

On the very same day that I ordered an iPad 2, I went shopping to buy myself a letter opener. I like to cover all my bases.

The genius of a folk melody or story is not the feeling that it's original but quite the opposite - the feeling that it has existed all along.

In an interesting inversion of status, the reigning breed in the dog park these days is the really-oddball-unidentifiable-mixed-breed-mutt-found-wandering-the-street or its equivalent. The stranger the mutt the better; the more peculiar the circumstance of it coming into your life, the better.

Recently, I have come to assume that any call to my landline is from a telemarketer or an automated call from Terminex, letting me know that our regularly scheduled pest-extermination service will occur on its regular schedule. So I usually ignore my home phone.

I think the responsibility of running a huge business, which happens if you become a successful designer, probably makes you more careful.

Sense of smell, of course, is only one of those dog qualities that can't be replicated or improved upon. I've been researching dogs in warfare for my book about 'Rin Tin Tin,' and I've read many accounts of their heroics: carrying messages through battle, alerting troops to enemy planes, and even parachuting behind enemy lines.