Miniature Yorkshire Terrier

A very dear friend of mine sent me a note today,

that made me hold my little Yorkie in my arms and cry...

WOW - what a tough decision.

I started doing some research on pets and death,

and found this great book I wanted to share with you.

(image by Studio Pet)

Every day thousands of dogs are brought to shelters--unkempt, undernourished and unloved. But help is on the way for these poor pups as Animal Planet's doggie Wonder Team comes to the rescue in the new series UNDERDOG TO WONDERDOG. Each episode follows the transformation of one helpless pup as it undergoes a complete metamorphoses, becoming the dog it was always destined to be. Every shelter dog is rescued, groomed, trained and rehabilitated before finally being placed into a loving home - equipped with its very own custom-designed dog house. Watch as the show's host, trainer, groomer and carpenter use their canine expertise to revamp these down-on-their-luck pups beginning

Saturday, January 3, at 8 PM (ET/PT).

"Celebrity makeovers, home makeovers and now finally doggie makeovers," says Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet Media. Not only is UNDERDOG TO WONDERDOG the kind of transformational television audiences love, these surprising makeovers truly change the lives of the dogs and their new families."

The series begins with the rescue of a Yorkshire terrier, appropriately named Lucky. After being hit by a car, Lucky badly needed a surgery that her previous owners could not afford. When we first meet her, she is still in the care of a local shelter, shivering and traumatized. UNDERDOG TO WONDERDOG'S premiere episode follows Lucky's journey is followed from that shelter in Brooklyn through her transformation with the Wonder Team. Complete with background stories on these well-deserving families, UNDERDOG TO WONDERDOG shows that sometimes the families need the love of a dog just as much as the dogs need them.

WATCH FOR IT!

Darla, Chelsea and Coco Puff share a quaint Victorian-style home.
Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors, heating and air conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery with valances and fanciful wallpapers.
At this time of year, Christmas music from the RCA Victor radio carries outside to a grassy yard surrounded by a white picket fence.

A sign on the porch reads: "Three spoiled dogs live here."
For Yorkshire terriers Chelsea and Coco Puff and Pomeranian Darla, Mom is Tammy Kassis, 45, a former insurance agent who lives in the Riverside County community of Winchester, east of Los Angeles. To call her an animal lover is an understatement.

"I'm beyond that," she says, later adding with conviction, "My dogs are my life."

Surfing the Internet, she happened upon Alan Mowrer's La Petite Maison, a builder of deluxe custom doghouses.

"I can do any style," says Mowrer, whose repertoire includes French châteaux, Tudor mansions, Swiss chalets and brick Colonial dog houses.

Kassis requested a replica of her own Victorian home. 8 foot by 11 foot.

Kassis guesstimates she has invested nearly $20,000 in construction, transport and equipment if she includes the painting, landscaping, screened doors and windows, mini-blinds and ceiling fans, as well as a yard with artificial turf.

For the holidays, Kassis plans to string white lights around the house and install an artificial tree. Large faux lollipops are staked in the flower bed around the doghouse.

Also, she confides, Santa is planning a big surprise for "the kids."
She has her eye on a small plasma-screen TV.

"They love to watch Animal Planet," Kassis says. "It's their favorite."

The Modern Dog: A Joyful Exploration of How We Live with Dogs Today
he talks about how dogs especially have changed us.

Dogs, he writes, made human existence possible, aiding us as we

developed civilization. But dogs have

changed more than our lifestyle -

they've profoundly changed how we see the world. There's no better

example of this than Hurricane Katrina.

Before the disaster, Coren writes, the U.S. Federal Emergency

Management Agency head Michael Brown dismissed questions about

evacuating companion animals, saying, "They are not our concern."

But as New Orleans drowned, a new and different attitude emerged.

The nation watched, horrified, as people died with their pets or battled

the elements trying to save them.

One elderly lady's Yorkshire terrier was taken away by a

soldier as she boarded a rescue helicopter.

"I got nothing and no one," she said, crying.

"He's all I got left!" An officer from the medical corps intervened.
"That's not a dog," he told the soldier. "That's medicine.

Medicine for the mind."

They are our little babies!