With heartwarming, funny, silly, and sad tributes, "Dog Blessings" honors the special connection between people and their canine friends. The essays collected here wax eloquent on subjects ranging from dog days at the beach to the lives of rescue and shelter dogs.

“Delightful . . . filled with accounts of the many magical moments these dear companions provide . . . and their impact on our days and our doings..” —Spirituality & Practice Featuring heartwarming passages by a renowned inspirational author, this gift book celebrates puppy joy, the “welcome home” wag of the tail, unbridled affection, bittersweet love for an aging pet, and the sublime moments shared between humans and their canine companions. “My dogs are my life. Let this book be a great part of yours..” —Doris Day, actress and founder of the Doris Day Animal Foundation “A moving and tender book of poems, prose, and prayers that gracefully honors our dog companions. Page after page, I found my heart opening even more to the deep love I share with dogs and how much they mean to me. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll call your dog over for a full-body hug. I heartily recommend this book to dog lovers everywhere!.” —Marty Becker, DVM, resident veterinarian on ABC’s Good Morning America “Anyone who lives with dogs knows how special they are and how much they affect our lives on a daily basis . . . In this anthology of poems, prayers and prose by famous and lesser-known writers, Cotner has gathered words that convey the sacred connection dogs and their humans have with each other..” —Best Friends Magazine

A collection of blessings that addresses the spiritual needs of modern-day pet owners. In encompassing elements from many cultures, faiths and traditions, it includes healing prayers, ceremonies for special occasions (such as the arrival of a new pet), and blessings for a long and happy life with your animal companion.

From the violent world of apartheid South Africa to the supposed immigrant haven of the United States, the people in Saunders’s debut story collection brave life’s big questions about connection, displacement, death, love, race, and justice. Grappling with feelings too disturbing to articulate, they turn to anthropology or math, music or cosmology, to make sense of the dissonance around them. More often than not, the only truth they find is that life is a complicated dance, and doing the right thing a moment by moment decision. In "We’ll Get to Now Later,” a guilt-stricken white South African immigrant confronts his apartheid past when he meets a Zulu dancer traveling with a circus in the United States. In "Pig Day,” an American teenager accidentally kills his best friend Nick, the son of a Romanian immigrant, and is co-opted by the bereaved father to build Nick’s coffin. In "A Sudden New City,” Heila, a frail and mentally faltering white South African grandmother, drives a tractor into a black crowd as revenge for her husband’s infidelity across the color line. In the tradition of Nadine Gordimer and Norman Rush, but with its own sense of comedy and metaphor, Blessings on the Sheep Dog is a first work by a master storyteller.

Includes the story Rescued by Ruby—now on Netflix! The bestselling and beloved Godwink series returns with a charming, dog-focused collection of “joyful” (The Washington Post) stories, all of which provide plenty of hope, encouragement, and laughter. With delightfully uplifting stories and enthralling prose, DogWinks is the perfect gift for dog lovers of all backgrounds. Featuring several never-before-published and true stories about coincidences and divine intervention, DogWinks is an inspirational and entertaining book that illustrates the overwhelming power of faith and how miracles can change our lives and those of our canine companions.

In Brenda Miller's second collection of award-winning essays, the reader is drawn into a conversation on topics ranging from new dogs to old stained glass, from a walk in Portland's Japanese Garden to a sojourn in Jerusalem, from model airplanes to Magic 8 Balls. As in her acclaimed first collection, Season of the Body, Miller leads us on a pilgrimage through her life as a woman driven by spiritual yearning. Together, these essays prompt us to consider how our hard-won abilities to bless others become ways of blessing ourselves.

Make a spiritual journey through this beautiful collection of blessings, prayers and meditations about the creatures, wild and tame, that inhabit our world. These moving contributions about all types of animals?playful dogs and beloved cats, giant whales and powerful elephants, tiny insects and delicate birds?are drawn from many faith traditions, including Native American, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist.A special section also provides animal blessing ceremonies you can use to memorialize the loss of a companion animal, offer prayers for an animal suffering illness or injury or simply recognize the spiritual connection we create when we fully appreciate another member of God?s creation.