Said John Steinbeck, "A dog is a bond between strangers." Want proof?

Consider the ones you're about to meet.

Tom Junod interviewed a dogcatcher. "There are at least a million dogs and cats in New York City. There are fourteen Israels. Which is to say that there are fourteen drivers at Animal Control. Israel is a driver. That's what he calls himself, and that's what he likes doing," he writes. "He likes the freedom of being on the road. It's just him and the white Ford van with the Animal Control logo on the side and the amber flashing light on top and the cages inside. It's just him and his maps and his dispatch radio and his wits and his experience. Israel has been a driver for fifteen years, so he doesn't need a lot of equipment, which is a good thing, because he doesn't get very much."

Jim Harrison described hunting dogs. "My first bird dog in 1964 was an extremely full chested and muscular English pointer bitch named Missy. From the moment we picked her up in northern Michigan she essentially became our trainer. As a pup she could scale tall bookcases to play with the cat. We were quite poor at the time, living in a drafty rental for 40 bucks a month in Kingsley, Michigan, with a furnace that couldn't raise the heat past 55 on the coldest winter days. I'd been trying to grouse hunt with Verl McManus' old beagle who had a singular talent of pattering around the woods treeing grouse—at which point he'd yip. I'd pretend the grouse had just barely landed or was on the verge of taking off when I popped them out of trees, and then one day I shot one on the fly flushing down between aisles of pines. The beagle naturally looked at me with admiration," he writes. "By the time Missy was 6 months I knew I was outfaced and took her to a trainer, who said euphemistically "That's a lotta dog" as she climbed—with some success—a fir tree in his yard to get at a squirrel. That fall we moved to New York's densely crowded Long Island just after Missy had learned a new trick. After I ran her she'd reenter the yard at top speed and leap over the entire hood of our car, then brake with her front paws while her momentum would pivot her ass around so fast it would drag her backward a few feet. Quite a dog."

Susan Orlean profiled a show dog. "If I were a bitch, I'd be in love with Biff Truesdale. Biff is perfect. He's friendly good-looking, rich, famous, and in excellent physical condition. He almost never drools. He's not afraid of commitment. He wants children -- actually, he already has children and wants a lot more. He works hard and is a consummate professional, but he also knows how to have fun," she writes. "What Biff likes most is food and sex. This makes him sound boorish, which he is not -- he's just elemental. Food he likes even better than sex. His favorite things to eat are cookies, mints, and hotel soap, but he will eat just about anything."

Rebecca Skloot observed that service animals aren't just dogs anymore. "This August, the Arizona Game and Fish Department ordered a woman to get rid of her chimpanzee, claiming that she brought it into the state illegally — she disputed this and sued for discrimination, arguing that it was a diabetes-assistance chimp trained to fetch sugar during hypoglycemic episodes," she writes. "Cases like this are raising questions about where to draw the lines when it comes to the needs and rights of people who rely on these animals, of businesses obligated by law to accommodate them and of everyday civilians who — because of health and safety concerns or just general discomfort — don’t want monkeys or ducks walking the aisles of their grocery stores."

And Steve Oney describes the place where some of the most pampered dogs in Los Angeles go.