Speaking Doglish

With a species as popular as dogs, you can bet the blogosphere is littered with blogs about them. How is this one different?

I'll start by stating what this blog is not.

It is not written by a dog.
I know you can't see me, but trust that I am not a dog. There are many dog blogs that are purportedly written by dogs. While I do not discourage dogs from exploring the power of written expression, my dogs realize that I have better ability to orally communicate with humans than they do, and therefore they have granted me the privilege of authoring this blog.

It is not strictly based on dog news.
Although I may want to cover dog-related news occasionally, I don't want this blog to be a reiteration of the dog news already on the Internet, and probably already covered by other blogs. I will probably only post dog news if it addresses a broader topic or concern in the dog community.

It is not a blog about celebrities and their dogs.
Don't get me wrong, what kinds of dogs celebrities have, how they treat them, where they take them, and how long they keep them all provide us with more fascinating minutiae that enable us to feel as though we know the people behind the famous faces in the magazines at the grocery checkout. It's about as difficult to ignore as reality TV, and just about as enlightening. Although it is possible to do a critical analysis of celebrity dog culture (and I am open to doing so in the future), most celebrity dog watching is done for its entertainment value, not its anthropological value.

It is not a collection of cute pictures of dogs.
Yes, I realize that I already have a Flickr account with pictures I've taken of dogs. And they are cute. But if you really want to be overloaded with cuteness, go to cuteoverload.com. Seriously, if that's not enough cute for you, you should probably be a preschool teacher.

It is not a catalog.
Many dog blogs focus on dogcentric products. I'm not against the occasional inclusion of a product, as long as it is not a dog stroller or dress or similarly ridiculous item that dogs are likely to find annoying. In order for products to be featured, they should have some sort of significance and be something dogs could be proud of.

So what exactly is this blog about?

It's an exploration of dogs and life with them. How have dogs impacted human kind? How have humans impacted canine kind? What do dogs mean to us? How do we communicate with them? How do we relate to like-minded (and not-so like-minded) dog lovers?

But most of all, this blog is an expression of my passion for the domestic dog.

This is me, speaking doglish.