Finally... here's the reason why children's books become dog-eared!

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/01/read-dogs-nonjudgmen.html

Click on this link above... it's fascinating, even if you don't care two woofs about dogs.

The article is about "how a primary school in Staffordshire, England, is using 'read dogs' -- specially trained greyhounds that listen patiently and nonjudgmentally while small children read aloud to them'. The school was inspired by a similar programme in the United States.

And greyhounds, it seems, are particularly well-suited: they do not bark and their short coat is less likely to trigger allergies. There is a picture of one such greyhound, Danny, lying patiently down beside a little girl, while she reads eagerly to him.

Now read the comments at the end of the article. It seems there are similar programmes in the US, Canada and Britain, especially at public libraries. There must be some special chemistry at work, leveraging on the natural affinity between friendly dogs and hyperactive young children.

Many of the comments are funny too. Here are some samples:

* Oh, very cool! Anything that removes the judgemental adult from the picture is a good thing. Animal puppets work great toward that end, as well. Kids that would usually prefer someone read to them, but are perfectly capable of doing it themselves, will often give in to a whiney dinosaur or monkey that begs them to read with a beseeching, "Oh, please please please please please!" You end up sounding like an idiot, but, it does get the kids to read.

* I heard of a library that does this where the kids can "check out" the dog for a half hour period, using a "bark code".

* "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

* A number of ex-stutterers -- including James Earl Jones, if I remember correctly -- have mentioned practising on animals for much this reason.

* I'll vouch for that, first hand. It helps. I had a debilitating stutter through about age 20, but was always fluent when speaking to animals. I still stutter, it's just rare for it to hold me up at all.

* You'll notice they're not doing this with cats. Judgmental bastards.

* Cats are also notorious for bad spelling and grammar.

* katz don't carrrrrrre

* You can't do this with Border collies. They keep interrupting to correct the kids' pronunciation.

* what about fish? reptiles?

As I write this posting (late at night), my two dogs -- Brady the beagle and Killer the mini schnauzer -- are already fast asleep. But after breakfast tomorrow, I'll dust off my War and Peace!