Happy Holidays to all...
And a special greeting to the therapy dog owners and therapy and service dog organizations who make this world a better place.
We here at Barking Planet continue to be awed by and grateful to the dog lovers and their dogs who help so many people, of all ages, in so many ways.
Dogs have a unique quality that helps people heal, release fear, and find joy. When you think about the blessings that dogs bring to people's lives, especially therapy and service dogs, it boggles the mind.
Happy Holidays...and may 2013 be good year for all.
Note:Thanks to Richard Bradley for the photo. Every year at this time we post a photo from Richard's Blog, A Rock In My Shoe . The dogs, Darcy and Caboose, have passed on but their holiday spirit remains. More on Richard's blog and his new puppy in January.
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Some wise words from Dogster...
This Holiday Season, Remember: A Puppy Is NOT a Present
"As the holidays approach, so does an opportunity to educate the people around us on a timely issue: that of puppies being given as holiday presents without too much though or planning beforehand. I don't know about you, but I cringe inwardly when I see stock photos of dogs with bows strapped to their heads displayed in wrapped boxes beneath Christmas trees. It's an image that's readily accepted all over the world. But that doesn't make it right"... to read all the article, click: dogster
All books in the Planet Of The Dogs series were chosen by Dogster's Dog Eared Book Club Book as Book of the Month.
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Tis the season...
I am once again swept with wonder and appreciation of therapy dogs and service dogs...and people like the volunteers and foster home owners in the photo above from 4 Paws For Ability.
4Paws For Ability is a remarkable organization where they train service dogs and then give them to children with special needs -- children with epileptic
seizures, Downs Syndrome, Autism, physical disabilites, and combinations of these and other challanging conditions.
It seems that it is difficult to find servce dogs for young children with special needs, a dog that will alert others if a child has a seizure, who will awaken confidence in an autistic child, or open the door to much more of life for a crippled child.
"Based in Xenia, Ohio, 4 Paws For Ability is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization whose
mission is to place quality service dogs with children with disabilities and veterans who have lost use of limbs or hearing; help with animal rescue, and educate the public regarding use of service dogs in public places."
"Today, placing approximately 100 dogs a year, 4 Paws For Ability is the largest organization whose primary mission is to place service dogs with children and one of the only organizations to have no minimum age requirements. "
Visit their site, watch the videos, read the heartfelt, positive testimonials:
Here is the link: service
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I found this excellent Way Cool Dogs article on aggression in dogs to be informative, thought provoking, and appropriate for the season. The fact that dogs are so loyal and loving makes a agression among family pets even more disturbing. Where does it come from?
Why Can't Everyone JUST Get Along?
"We are the sum of our of our life experiences, and the same can be said of dogs. Each dog has an individual personality and genetic make-up, giving multi-dog households the potential for clashes. Finding just the right combination of dog personalities to share your home can be challenging..." The article continues with specific examples draw from a lifetime of dog rescue and dog loving by the author Cayr Wulff...Here is the link: Agression
Cat's Motto... taught to each kitten....No matter what you did wrong, always try to make it look like the dog did it -- Unknown author
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Holiday thanks and holiday greetings to Deanna Leah of
HBGProductions... HBG
Productions is a literary agency representing independent publishers and self published authors in the international marketplace. Deanna specializes in being hands on and personal, working closely with clients and publishers. She is a regular at the major International book fairs. It was at the London Book Fair that she initiated our relationship with Mr li Ke, publisher, at Chongxianguan Books Co., of Bejing. Mr Ke will be publishing the Planet Of The Dogs series in China. We also send holiday greetings to Mr Ke and his Assocciates. We look forward to having Chinese children enjoying our books.
educating alice...
This is a favorite site for thoughtful, original insights and information on kid's reading. Written by Monica Edinger, a passionate teacher (4th graders) of literature and history and...Here is an excerpt from a recent post that I heartily agree with...
Stop Calling Books for Kids YA!
"More and more I’m seeing “young adult book” used in popular culture as an umbrella term for a wide assortment of titles only some of which are actually teen books. In articles, favorites lists, and blog posts, books being identified as young adult are in fact books for younger readers, children that is.
For example, The Atlantic‘s post “The Best of the Young Adult B-Sides” includes Gregor the Overlander which is a book for children firstly even if teens read it too. Granted, the post’s writers do acknowledge that “…
Endinger continues with examples (including NPR) and the writes..."
"Nostalgia is what is going on here and it isn’t fair. That is, it is all well and good that those adults who enjoy reading young adult books today like to reminisce about their favorite teen reads. But when they include children’s books among them and called them YA they are marginalizing the true readership of these books. My 4th grade students are children. They are not young adults. They are not teenagers. They are a separate group as are their books. And they and their books matter too. So please, consider the children…books, that is."
To read it all, click this link:Alice
And now, the Good News Follow-Up...and an indicator of the power of Ms Endinger's educating alice Blog
"My recent rant "Stop Calling Books for Kids 'Young Adult'" got a lot of attention. Both from adults who read books for younger readers and weren't understanding my frustration and others who work with children and did. Happily, the New York Times
sees it as I do and starting this Sunday will be splitting their children's chapter book list into two categories, middle grade and young adult. They are defining middle grade readers as being between 8 and 12 years old. As for young adult, they are defining the category as books published for ages 12-18 while also noting that they are being read by many in their 20s and 30s. Thank you, New York Times Book Review, for recognizing this."
The response by the NYTimes is a step forward. However we at Barking Planet have another dilemma: the Planet of the Dogs series appeals to kids both younger and older than 8 years of age. The illustration is from Planet OfThe Dogs.
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A video Smile...Toys for Tots and the USMC...click and smile: santa
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Wow! 55% of YA (Young Adult) Books Readers are 18 or older
"More than half the consumers of books classified for young adults aren’t all that young. According to a new study, fully 55% of buyers of works that publishers designate for kids aged 12 to 17 -- known as YA books -- are 18 or older, with the largest segment aged 30 to 44, a group that alone accounted for 28% of YA sales. And adults aren’t just purchasing for others -- when asked about the intended recipient, they report that 78% of the time they are purchasing books for their own reading. The insights are courtesy of Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer in the Digital Age, an ongoing biannual study from Bowker Market Research that explores the changing nature of publishing for kids...."
Here's the link to read more: publishersweekly
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PetsBlogs is a very well done directory of resources for just about everything a pet owner might want to find...Products, Supplies,Services,Social Pet Networks and a Pet Cost Calculator...their Blog Directory includes cats, horses, fish and -- of course -- dogs.
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A Christmas Classic... watch the dogs put up the Christmas Decorations... it's much more fun than deck the halls...link: DecoratingDogs from FLIXXY.COM
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NYTimes
Throw Out the Rules! Read a Fairy Tale
This was the headline of a New York Times Editorial by Verlyn Klinkenborg, precipitated in large part by Phillip Pullman's new retelling of the Grimm brother's "Fairy" tales.
I found it fascinating, in as much as our books, the Planet Of The Dogs series, appear to be an anathema to the Grimm tales, and therefore, Mr Pullman's celebrated new book. Here are excerpts from the editorial that illustrate the differences:
"The tales — and most of the rules within them — are completely discontinuous. Enchanted princes clearly can’t do anything, for instance, or they wouldn’t be flounders. We’re not allowed to wonder whether the mouse that set up house is the one that later moves in with a talking sausage. Nor do the laws lead to the moral of the story. Most of the tales lack anything so simple. Read them through, and you realize that there are any number of kings — kings everywhere! — but very few lessons to instill in a child...The Grimm tales are as amoral as arithmetic. Things work out or they don’t. The important question is never, what do these characters think? It’s, what do they take for granted? And what they take for granted is that anything can happen..." Link: Grimm
Don't Throw Out The Rules! Read the Planet Of The Dogs Series
Our books, unlike the Grimm books, are not amoral; they do have lessons to
instill...the dogs inspire people through their actions and children and adults learn the value of love, loyalty, courage and non-vionet solutions to violence.
Here what Don Blankenship, educator and reviewer (Good Books for Kids), had to say...
“What a truly wonderful and unique Christmas story for the whole family. Snow Valley Heroes, A Christmas Tale, by Robert J. McCarty and illustrated by Stella Mustanoja McCarty is the third offering in the Planet of the Dogs series; What an imagination this team has… an ideal book to snuggle up with the little ones on a cold winter night and simply enjoy.” Don Blankenship, Teacher, reviewer-Good Books for Kids
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SLATE
Are Fairy Tales Out of Fashion?
I hate reading them to my young daughter—the classic versions are too violent, the Disney stories have bad values.
By Libby Copeland|
We found this excellent, provacative, and insightful article by Libby Copeland through Maria Tartar's excellent blog, Breezes from Wonderland...here are excerpts...if the subject of appropriate books for kids interests you, I would urge you to read it all.
"It’s no surprise that many parents have stopped reading fairy tales to their young children because they’re too scary, according to a new study by a British television channel. Why should they? Many were never really meant for children, not when the original folk tales were first gathered by collectors like the brothers Grimm...
There’s a tendency to jump to the conclusion that because modern parents are squeamish about violence in fiction we must be wussy and overprotective. But is it also wussy that we don’t spank anymore, or tell our children that they’re wicked? We don’t look at violence in the same way as we used to; it is not a threat for bad behavior, nor is it God’s punishment for sin. I’m sometimes troubled by reading even the most modernized versions of fairy tales to my daughter, who is 2½. It’s not that Walt Disney didn’t do his best to excise the violence from these creaky folk tales; fairy tale scholar Jack David Zipes has called him “that twentieth-century sanitation man.” But the lessons these cleansed tales impart are not ones I wish to teach, even if they are canonical to Western culture..." link: Copeland
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All books in the Planet Of The Dogs series can be purchased at your favorite independent bookstore or on the internet through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Powells and many others.
Librarians, teachers, bookstores -- order our books directly from Ingram...professional discount, of course. For sample chapters of all books in the Planet Of The Dogs series, click:SampleChapters
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One more time…Dogs in music video adopt humans at the pound http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6C6YCTNqVo this is the link
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Yelodoggie Enters Contest to raise money for Dogs Deserve Better...
DDB rescues chained and penned dogs. The contest is called "Rattling Chains".Here were the Guidelines:
" All pieces in each medium should reflect the theme and belief that Dogs Deserve Better than life on a chain, and portray any area from the extreme feelings of isolation and loneliness on a chain to the elation and joy a dog experiences when he/she is set free. "
C.A.Wulff is an author, artist and animal advocate. She has been involved in pet rescue for over twenty-five years and has written two books about her true-life adventures living with an ever-changing house full of pets: Born Without a Tail, and Circling the Waggins. Wulff also writes a pet column and book review column for the Examiner, and has served as a contributing editor for Pet Pardons News. She attributes her love of animals to having been raised by Wulffs.
Here is an Amazon reader review of Wulff''s Circling the Waggins, the latest Barking Planet Productions publication
."Circling the Waggins" is at once an engaging read for any animal lover but can easily
be viewed in a larger sense as an object lesson in how relationships are intertwined
and how each of us affects and is affected by them. The author, Cayr Ariel Wulff, an experienced animal-rescue care-giver, provides thoughtful insight into the personalities and character of a variety of critters--dogs, cats . . . even some feeder mice. Replete with all the stuff of life--joy, fulfillment, sadness, loss, comedy, angst, exhaustion, exhilaration--this book is an intimate examination of interplay among people, animals and the events that shape their lives. A more serious follow-up to her book, "Born Without A Tail", one must ready oneself for tears, laughter (and everything in between) and a good dose of philosophical ponderings. A most satisfying read.
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Therapy reading dog owners, librarians, and teachers with therapy reading dog programs...
Write us at [email protected] and we will send you free reader copies of books from the Planet of the Dogs Series.
Read Dog Books to Dogs....Ask any therapy reading dog: "Do you like it when the the kids read dog books to you?"
For sample chapters of Planet Of The Dogs, Castle In The Mist and Snow Valley Heroes, A Christmas Tale, click here: Sample Chapters
The photo is of therapy dog owner Barb Babikian, on the right, holding her therapy dog, Dusty. Barb's other dog, Lille, is being held by therir friend, Reitza, who, sadly, did not survive cancer. Barb and her dogs work in schools, hospitals, and special needs facilities. Their work,in addition to helping to open the reading door for kids has brougt joy, love and support to many others.
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A message from Waggin Tales Therapy Dog Reading Program
Thank you again for the Planet of the Dogs books; the volunteers and their dogs loved them!-- Kimberli Buckley, Librarian, San Pablo.Ca Library
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Sunbear Squad Reminder for the Month of December:
When attending holiday gatherings that include pets, be observant and proactive. Remember that parties can become very stressful for resident and visiting pets, especially when active, curious, pet-loving children are present. Take on the responsibility of watching over pets and children and be prepared to intervene when you see pets under stress, to help prevent bites or scratches.
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"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverence, and to turn around three times before lying down." Robert Benchley
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