Blog love

I am edgy, bold, informative, modern, unique and humorous. I am also a crappy, crappy photographer [weeps], but I hereby promise Pia that I will try to take dog and/or sheep photos every day to try to get better at it. Pia is the most excellent photographer of Just Another Dog Blog, home of Bella and Kate and some of the best dog photography on the web. Check out her photos...! I, on the other hand, can't even get a halfway decent snap of a rose unless there's zero wind and the light is good. [The rose is David Austin's Evelyn. Poor focus, blown-out whites, etc.]

Anyhow, it is now my pleasure to list several new-ish [to me], edgy, bold, informative, modern and unique dog blogs, with an emphasis this round on news, rescue, pibbles, and working sheepdogs.

Most excellent new-ish [to me] blogs:

The Border Collie Blogs. Link goes to my blog's right sidebar ;~) I'm so glad these folks are writing [and training and trialing]. Most are active stockdog handlers and stalwarts of the Border Collie Boards. Several are wonderful photographers, and all are terrific writers. Bloglandia is a better place because they are in it.

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Today's Arthur. Great photos, spare and wonderful writing, a quiet sense of responsibility, super dedication to rescue — this blog just rules. [Also, no romping-at-the-rainbow-bridge crap, doG forgive me.] Arthur's person is one of the good ones. I love this blog.

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Save the pit bull, save the world. Katie delivers terrific, heartfelt, super smart commentary on pit bulls and related topics: stupid people, scary BSL [but I repeat myself], puppy mill tykes that suffer for their breeders' sins, dog health, dogs in the news and the pit bulls she lives with and loves. An addictive, most excellent must-read.

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Smartdogs' Weblog. Take a look at the tag cloud on this site and you'll find everything from circus to science, with ethics featured prominently in the middle. A great recipe for a blog, if you ask me. If you missed an important story or a new research article, chances are Janeen has written it up. She'd be very good to work dogs with, I suspect, and very good to join for drinks and discussion afterward.

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Spotted Dog Farm. This blog was off-line for a bit, and I feared for the author. She's 1) working on a PhD related to dogfighting and 2) working as an animal control director at an unnamed location in the rural south. No rainbow bridges here, either, but much honesty about negligence and cruelty and heartache. There are a few victories to keep the broken-winged bird from dying outright, but suffering looms large. Things will change for the better -- we've seen that here -- but it won't happen in a day. [If anyone dares to complain that I should have posted a warning about "graphic" photos on the Spotted Dog Farm site, I shall spit ink. Forgive me for not keeping a Victorian fainting couch on my blog. It's 2008. Get a helmet.]