Ttouch for dogs: new age massage awakens doggy self-awareness MI [Manchester Enterprise] (Several years ago, we purchased Getting in touch with your dog by Linda Tellington-Jones. Tellington illustrates how to massage a dog with a T-Touch technique which supposedly  benefits a dog's psyche. She claims a T-Touch dog is calmer, happier and more confident. I've been using her T-Touch for several years and our dog enjoys it. I don't know if it works, but his confidence is definitely up, he's happier and he's very calm. It's hard to tell if T-Touch did its magic, or our dog is just a normal, happy dog who blossomed with socialization. Even so, T-Touch is fun to do, so I'd recommend it as a way to bond with your dog... )

Talking with the dog Bowlingual style Japan Over 300,000 dog owners in Japan woofed up $125 for the Bowlingual dog language interpreter...  When Bowlingual goes on sale in the U.S. in September, Takara Company projects sales of 60 to 70 million units at a price of $120 each...

'The [bowlingual] system works by analyzing and classifying a dog's emotions into one of six main categories: sad, frustrated, needy, happy, self-expressive and on guard. Within those categories, there are a number of set phrases of which the Bowlingual chooses one at random... "I can understand what he feels or what he wants to say without having to see his face. Before we go to the park he always says he wants to play and after a walk he always says he is hungry." [Keiko Egawa] '  [ComputerWorld] (unfortunately for us, our dog is not a vocalizer; when he wants to go outside, he comes to my chair and stares at me, and once he makes eye contact, he trots quickly to the back door and stands there waiting for the door to open. He's a Harpo Marx knockoff: all pantomine and little, if any, noise... )