Mark Deming:

It's not at all surprising that Laurie Anderson would make a film dealing with grief and loss, especially as one of her first major projects after the death of her husband Lou Reed. But instead of offering a tribute to her late spouse, Anderson chose to make a film that dealt with another departed loved one: her dog. Heart of a Dog is loosely centered around her experiences with her dog Lolabelle. The soundtrack combines music, sounds effects, ambient noises, and Anderson's narration as she tells us stories about Lolabelle that lead into observations on a variety of other topics -- life in post-9/11 America, her uneasy relationship with her mother, harrowing memories from her childhood, her studies of Buddhism, and the nature of dreams.

Jonathan Self:

In Defence of Dogs, by John Bradshaw, is about the evolution of dogs and their relationship with humans. He begins by telling a lovely story about how when he was growing up, his grandfather had a dog who used to have a routine. Every day it used to walk into town and see people. They used to stop the traffic so the dog could cross the road, and later it would come home. There was much greater freedom for dogs. That's his starting point: He suddenly realized that nowadays dogs always have to be on the lead and there are all these rather strict rules about them. This got him interested in the relationship between dogs and humans. It's a fantastic book and really explores all sorts of things, like how dogs became domesticated and what happens within wolf packs, which is what everybody looks at because dogs and wolves are so closely connected. In particular, in training, you'll hear a lot of people say, "Oh the dog views the family as a pack and you need to be the alpha male, you need to dominate your dog. You mustn't let it get on the furniture, you mustn't let it go ahead of you through the door." In fact all that research was based on wolves that were being observed in zoos and wildlife parks. And of course those packs were not actually the same sort of pack that would exist in the wild. They were a made-up pack.

Once they started researching what wolves did in the wild, they discovered that the whole alpha male and alpha female thing is a complete misnomer. You've got a Mum and Dad and the next generation down are the previous year's cubs who stay with the pack to help bring up the third generation. It's a pass-through system. Then the new cubs stay on, and the teenagers go off and form their own packs and the wolves, far from fighting each other, are all very cooperative, because it's all about survival. There is very little fighting between wolves.

Ben Crair:

"How would you feel letting your kids outside to play, knowing there are wolves out there?" Annie Liverman, a waitress at the Columbia Crossing restaurant in Columbia, asked me on a recent visit. Never mind that red wolves have never actually attacked a human. In the farming town of Fairfield, Frances Cuthrell said she leaves Christmas lights on her home year-round, hoping they'll scare the wolves away.

An exchange:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The "Bear Patrol" is working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: [uncomprehendingly] Thanks, honey.

John Maynard Keynes:

In the long run we are all dead.