THE BEST 'FAMILY' DOGS ARE…WENT FISHING, CAUGHT 4 DEER!

You look a little young to be a veterinarian!

Normally our posts have to do with me, Lou's book or our life in Malibu, but this week two very cool stories caught my eye and I wanted to share them. The Best Friends Animal Society newsletter had a story by Kelli Harmon about how to find the 'best' breed of dog for your family. While I'm a big advocate for pit bulls, people thinking about a dog might want to give it a read: How can you find your own version of the perfect dog? Dozens of websites have quizzes or top 10 lists of the best breeds for families (or for protection, or for people who live in an apartment, and so on). But those lists of breeds miss the mark. Why? Because they answer the wrong question. There is no perfect breed — for anyone. But there is a perfect dog out there for everyone. You just have to know what to look for. Golden retrievers and every other breed are like snowflakes - When people seek out these lists, what are they really looking for? A dog who won’t bite anyone, or will be easy for a middle schooler to walk on a leash, or a breed that doesn’t bark a lot, or is active or not very active? These things are important considerations. But looking for any of these qualities in one breed over another sets up the expectation that if you get a (insert the name of the “best” breed here), he will absolutely have (or won’t have) what matters to you. That’s where the quizzes and lists fall short. Kristi Littrell, adoption manager at Best Friends, has successfully matched up thousands of dogs with families in her 15-plus years at Best Friends. She’s met hundreds of purebreds — a veritable dog show parade of breeds — over the years. Kristi says, “It’s wrong to think that every single poodle bites and every golden retriever is extra nice.” She says that anyone looking for the best dog for their family and lifestyle should base the choice on “the individual animal, and not on age, breed or mix of breeds.” Read more
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While we usually post canine news, this story about an Alasakn fisherman who went out for Halibut and came back with four deer was just too odd, and uplifting:Tom Satre told the Sitka Gazette that he was out with a charter group on his 62-foot fishing vessel when four juvenile black-tailed deer swam directly toward his boat."Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at us. We could tell right away that the young bucks were distressed. I opened up my back gate and we helped the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals onto the boat. In all my years fishing, I've never seen anything quite like it! Once on board, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering." Read the entire story:

2014…THE YEAR OF THE PIT BULL

Lou says that, according to the Chinese calendar, 2014 is the Year of the Horse. I say, hogwash; as far as I'm concerned this is the Year of the Pit Bull. Among the goals I've plotted out for my humans is to sell several thousand copies of GIMME SHELTER, and to get the book adopted as part of the curriculum at the L.A. County Juvenile Probation Camp Schools where Lou teaches part-time. On top of that, we're aiming to work with Project Unleashed so we can help a whole gang of homeless dogs and kids at risk. 
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Lou sometimes gets discouraged so I had to point out all that we accomplished in 2013. For example, in January we published Gimme Shelter as an e-book on Amazon. The following month saw the arrival of the paperback version, both courtesy of our 'angel' Kathryn Galan. April saw a great Pet Life Radio interview with our friend and animal advocate Megan Blake, a flurry of newspaper articles in the Malibu Surfside, Malibu Times and Around About Peterstown (NJ), plus an SRO author's night at Diesel Books in Malibu. May brought a similar gig at Bank of Books, a Top 10 ranking in The Times book list (Malibu Times, that is), a magazine photo shoot with the amazing Roxanne McCann, and featured placement on Amazon's dog section. In June, Lou penned a story on 'Adopting A Pit Bull' for India's WOOF! Magazine. July saw us featured in the Malibu Times Magazine. In August, we kicked off the American Cancer Society's first Malibu  'Bark For Life' event, were featured in stories in the Agoura Patch and Acorn, signed books at the Westlake Barnes & Noble, and reprised our Diesel reading at their Brentwood store. September found us gracing the pages of American Dog Magazine, where we received a glowing review, and chatting with Tom & Sandy on on Live 805, KVTA (listen here). During this stretch, our paeano, Al Santillo, was busy selling copies of Gimme Shelter faster than we could print them. Grazie, Al. In October, we spent a great Saturday holding court in the author's corner at Agoura Hills' Reyes Adobe Days. December brought a nice surprise - a #16 slot on Diesel's Top 50 Books of 2103, and another story on Dogs In Winter for WOOF! If that weren't enough, along the way we made a ton of new dog friends like Chip & Alicia from Project Unleashed, the folks at Malibu Pet Companions, Linda Blair's Worldheart Foundation, Animal Advocates Alliance and the Canine Adoption Rescue League. Couple that with a slew of parties, dinners, Eugenie's gallery show and a slew of crazy days with the Trancas Dogpark gang and it added up to one delicious, stupendous circuit around the sun.

2014, The Year of the Pit Bull!

A few months back, we posted about neuro-research confirming that dogs are people, too. Well, now comes shocking word that cats, yes, cats, have human feelings, too. According to 'According Animals Dignity' by Frank Bruni in the NY Times:"This [trend] is only going to build, because at the same time that scientific advances force us to gaze upon the animal kingdom with more respect, the proliferation of big and little cameras — of eyes everywhere — permits us to eavesdrop not just on animal play but also on animal persecution. It’s all documented, it all goes viral, and we can’t turn away, or claim ignorance, as easily as we once did.