What do dogs dream about?

Who's asking: Gary Fleder, Santa Monica, CA

Until dogs talk, I can only give you a theory. Dizzy dreams of chasing cats and squirrels, running with his old friends from Los Angeles, and bacon. He also has nightmares, but I don't like to think about what those might be. I got him from people who found him on the side of the road, after he'd fallen or been thrown from a moving vehicle. He was only five months old, and he'd been starved, so who knows what his puppyhood was like. He's afraid of teenaged boys and men with beards.

These days, his life is pretty good. He likes the snow, but misses grass in the wintertime. He is passionately devoted to Casey, a black Lab who lives up the hill; when we walk by Casey's house, he makes me stop to see whether Casey (who gets a lot of freedom) will come out to play. He loves the water, and considers anything that doesn't have ice on it suitable for wading.

My cousin Moira finds artistic inspiration in dogs' dreams; her collages, based on photographs of her clients' pets, imagine all the things a dog might dream about. (One of her prints might make a nice Valentine's Day present, don't you think?)

Five Random Songs

"I Don't Wanna Fight," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. From Echo, a CD that's all about midlife and the death of relationships. Appropriate, maybe, not cheerful.

"Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six," The Pogues. The old and the new, more sorrow and more anger off the Pogues' magnum opus, If I Should Fall from Grace with God. Is is just me, or does everyone seem unusually angry and sad lately? I blame the weather -- or maybe it's just *@$#% February.

"Is This Love," Bob Marley. Oh, thank goodness. Spring break comes to the iPod.

"A Man in a Purple Dress," The Who. More anger and sadness from Pete Townshend (off Endless Wire), raging against the Catholic Church.

"Sister Europe," The Psychedelic Furs. Arrgh... more rage! I'm fast-forwarding. Where's my ELO? Where's my ABBA? Where's my Partridge Family, for Pete's sake?