Lifetime dogs intersect with our lives with particular impact; they're dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable, ways.

Some rescue groups are highly organized, experienced, well-funded, nearly professional. Others are small amateur operations run out of garages and back yards. Their members may identify strongly with animals as victims, sometimes because of traumas and disappointments in their own lives. Others simply love animals and want to help them.

There is no evidence that dogs have the kind of complex emotional lives and value systems that we do. It's one reason why we love them so much, in fact. They are neither ""good"" nor ""bad."" They don't hold grudges, act in petty ways, or seek revenge. They read our moods, but not our minds.

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.

For centuries my father's family lived on Britain's biggest tidal river, the Severn, on which there was a huge trade with the interior, and through the Port of Bristol with America.

That's my parenting style - 'Go watch the TV.' I'm one of 11 children, and my mother's parenting style was, 'There's the TV. Go watch it. Mommy's got 10 other people to take care of.'

Remember that the problem with hyper-parenting isn't that it's bad for children; it's that it's bad for parents.

My mother never made me do anything for my brothers, like serve them. I think that's an important lesson, especially for the Latino culture, because the women are expected to be the ones that serve and cook and whatever. Not in our family. Everybody was equal.