Man has always had trouble understanding exactly what his best friend is trying to say, but a new gadget released in Japan is trying to reduce the lingual divide between dog and its owner.

Boomer, a 17-year-old German Shepherd who woke his Florida family when their trailer was on fire in June, may have to be euthanized. The home was left uninhabitable and the family is staying with friends who couldn't take in their two dogs, so they were forced to place them at the local Humane Society, where they will be put down if they are not adopted within a few days (unusual for dogs that age).

Read the CNN article for more details.

Update: (2001/08/10) Since the story became national news, calls have been pouring into the Humane Society shelter from people all over the country interested in adopting the dogs, jamming phone lines. The dogs are no longer in danger of being eunthanized and the shelter hopes to place them with someone local (and, one would hope, willing to return them to their original owners when circumstances permit) by this weekend. Story here.

Update: (2001/08/11) The dogs were adopted by a 74-year-old woman from nearby Port St. Lucie.

ConiFur is looking for black and white art, cartoons, stories, and poems for this year's convention book. Deadline is September 15. They are also accepting advertisements. The full announcement appears when you click "Read more" below.

I've noticed the website has recieved a marked increase in traffic, post-Anthrocon, despite doing practically no advertising at the convention. To all you new readers: I hope you're enjoying the site! I plan to do more advertising at upcoming conventions with the hope of increasing readership further. To facilitate this, a few issues have to be taken care of. Read more to see what my plans for the next three months include.

British author Garry Kilworth's 1997-1999 talking-animal trilogy "The Welkin Weasels" (v.1, Thunder Oak; v.2, Castle Storm; and v.3, Windjammer Run) has proven popular enough that Kilworth is adding a second trilogy to the series. It has just started with v.4, Gaslight Geezers. If the first trilogy can be summarized as "Robin Hood with weasel good-guy outlaws fighting stoat nobility", the new trilogy is "Sherlock Holmes with weasels". Very witty. This is a British series with no American edition, so those interested should look for it at Amazon.co.uk. The specific page with cover illustration is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0552547042/.