Learning About Guard Dogs

This is going to be a sad entry, so if you're not in the mood for something sad, better to take a pass on today's entry.

Don't have much time, but I wanted to tell you a little about my interview with Alanna Devine, acting director of the Montreal SPCA. Alanna knows a lot about guard dogs and she told me some heartbreaking stories. I'd heard that some guard dogs have been "debarked" -- meaning their vocal cords have been removed. But Alanna told me she knows of puppies who've had metal pipes shoved down their throats -- an especially cruel way of debarking them. She also explained that though some people take good care of guard dogs, many people don't. Alanna says there's no such thing as a mean dog, but that some people train their dogs to be mean -- they do this, of course, by mistreating them. So so sad, but perhaps by writing a novel about guard dogs, I may be able to raise some of these issues and make young readers more aware about the mistreatment of these dogs. On that note, I've got to run... hey, my article about teens and cell phones is in this week's Maclean's Magazine. Guess where I got the idea? From my daughter, of course, who racked up a pretty high cell phone bill last month! There's nothing like turning one's troubles into a story!!