Recently we welcomed Cesar Millan, the "Dog Whisperer," as our guest blogger. The author of Be the Pack Leader, Cesar knows his canines — and in his final post, he shares some wisdom with which every dog lover can identify.

My family lives in a typical suburban neighborhood in Southern California, and our cul de sac is overrun with kids. This Halloween while my thirteen-year-old son Andre took nine-year-old Calvin trick-or-treating, my wife and I got to watch a virtual parade of ghosts and goblins, vampires and witches, superheroes and cartoon characters as they came and went from our front door. But there was something else we noticed and got a big kick out of — all the dressed-up dogs. We were entertained by Labs dressed up as ballerinas, English bulldogs dressed up as NFL players, and Yorkies dressed up like little bandits. The market for doggie Halloween outfits must certainly be booming!

Of course this is all harmless fun, but seeing this pageant of dogs in their cute outfits got me thinking about our powerful need to humanize our dogs. We give them human names, and we put them to sleep on doggie canopy beds. We speak to them in full sentences and paragraphs. We train our children very young to humanize animals by creating cartoon characters of critters that talk, rationalize, live in houses, drive cars... and even defy the laws of gravity like the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. Humans seem to have an innate need to make over our world in our own image. In a metaphorical sense, we continue to "dress up" our dogs as humans, even after Halloween is over.

My clients often say about their dogs, "Oh, he thinks he's a human" when the dog does something "cute," or when he begs scraps from the table. "He wishes he were a person." In my opinion, if animals could indeed "wish," why would on earth would they want to be like us? We're the most unstable, destructive, restless, and lonely species on the planet! In my opinion, it might make more sense for people to wish they were more like dogs.

Click here to read the rest of Cesar's post.

It's so stormy, the puddles have waves. Bagheera steadies himself on a window ledge, warm and dry, high on the basement wall. Raindrops shiver down the dirty glass.

If you're going to stay inside, you might as well hole up underground — or so they have decided, without ever discussing it. Oreo has been lounging on the futon down here for days, it seems. He drifts in and out of sleep while Chester naps on the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Zooey asks Bear, "Clara told you this, when?"

"Years ago."

"Told you what?" Oreo wants to know.

"A story about Fup."

"Old story or new story? What about? Not the time she went to the mountain, because we've heard that story a million times."

"I don't remember anything about a fountain," says Bagheera, who can't hear very well alongside the splatter of rain.

Chester stirs. "Wait," he tells Bear and Zooey. "Weren't you two with her when she went to the mountain?"

Zooey interrupts: "Let Bear talk, already. It's got nothing to do with the mountain."

"Talk already, then," Oreo agrees.

Bear nods. "I will."

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Thank you sincerely to all our friends for your outpouring of thoughts and good wishes, and for the many generous donations to the Oregon Humane Society in memory of our beloved Fup.