Dog and Bear are best friends who could not be more different. Follow one of their very first adventures in this board book edition of Dog Changes His Name. Dog thinks his name is b-o-r-i-n-g. He wants to change it and he wants Bear to help. They go through many options, including Prince, Champ, and Skippy (which makes Bear smile). What will they finally settle on for Dog's new name? New York Times Bestselling author and artist Laura Vaccaro Seeger's many books for children include First the Egg, Green, and the Dog and Bear series, and have won numerous awards and citations, including two Caldecott Honors, two Theodore Geisel Honors, and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Her newest book is I Used to Be Afraid. Laura lives on Long Island with her husband, Chris, and their two sons, Drew and Dylan.

Three easy-to-read stories reveal the close friendship between Dog and Bear.

A little dog named Cat decides he doesn't want to be named that. What does he do to change his name to something new? A little dog named Cat Wondered how he got a name like that! From other animals, he had found That cats weren't very nice to be around. Another name he wished he had, Because being named Cat made him mad! What did the little dog do To change his name to something new?

“No Dog Should Die Alone” was the attention-grabbing — and heart-stirring — headline of journalist Laura T. Coffey’s TODAY show website story about photographer Lori Fusaro’s work with senior shelter pets. While generally calm, easy, and already house-trained, these animals often represent the highest-risk population at shelters. With gorgeous, joyful photographs and sweet, funny, true tales of “old dogs learning new tricks,” Coffey and Fusaro show that adopting a senior can be even more rewarding than choosing a younger dog. You’ll meet endearing elders like Marnie, the irresistible shih tzu who has posed for selfies with Tina Fey, James Franco, and Betty White; Remy, a soulful nine-year-old dog adopted by elderly nuns; George Clooney’s cocker spaniel, Einstein; and Bretagne, the last known surviving search dog from Ground Zero. They may be slower moving and a tad less exuberant than puppies, but these pooches prove that adopting a senior brings immeasurable joy, earnest devotion, and unconditional love.

A New York Times bestselling book! Allen and Linda Anderson adopted a traumatized one-year-old cocker spaniel who had been abandoned. Soon, the troubled dog they named “Leaf” turned their home into a war zone. Although Leaf and Allen were forging a friendship with visits to dog parks and bonding time, Leaf’s emotional issues overwhelmed the couple. Shortly after Leaf’s arrival, Allen, who had spent eight years as a big city police officer and survived so many close calls that Linda called him “Miracle Man,” received a diagnosis from his doctor that made him think his luck had finally run out. Allen had an unruptured brain aneurysm that could be fatal, and the surgery to repair it might leave him debilitated. Having seen his father live for years with the effects of a massive stroke, he dreaded that the worst fate might not be death. What Allen didn’t know is that he and Leaf, like comrades facing the ultimate battle, would be there for each other with the miracle of this man and this dog coming together at exactly the right time.

Hilmar Klute tells the touching story of how he unexpectedly became a dog owner the day his wife came home with Winston, an English Bull Terrier puppy she finds abandoned in a city cemetery. The new arrival in Hilmar's life is soon peeing on his parquet floor and chewing his glasses, cushions, telephone cable – and pretty much everything in sight! Winston wrecks the apartment and keeps Hilmar awake at night, but the dog also opens up a new world to Hilmar; of which he was previously blissfully unaware. Without a clue about how to deal with a puppy, Hilmar tries to make some sense of the unfamiliar territory of the dog park, where people seem to think of themselves more as members of a pack than of society. He soon finds himself studying the dog owners themselves, and casting a critical eye over the services of the professional ‘dog whisperer.’ Hilmar’s attempts to return his world to normal disclose some surprising truths about the relationship between man and dog, and this charming and irreverent book has much to tell us about the weaknesses of both species, and ultimately their strengths, too.

An instructive and marvelously entertaining chronicle of a puppy's first year, by the executive editor of The New York Times One sparkling summer day, Jill Abramson brought home a nine-week-old golden retriever named Scout. Over the following year, as she and her husband raised their adorable new puppy, Abramson wrote a hugely popular column for The New York Times's website about the joys and challenges of training this rambunctious addition to their family. Dog-lovers from across the country inundated her with e-mails and letters, and the photos they sent in of their own dogs became the most visited photo album on the Times's site in 2009. Now Abramson has gone far beyond the material in her column and written a detailed and deeply personal account of Scout's first year. Part memoir, part manual, part investigative report, The Puppy Diaries continues Abramson's intrepid reporting on all things canine. Along the way, she weighs in on such issues as breeders or shelters, adoption or rescue, raw diet or vegan, pack-leader gurus like Cesar Millan or positive-reinforcement advocates like Karen Pryor. What should you expect when a new puppy enters your life? With utterly winning stories and a wealth of practical information, The Puppy Diaries provides an essential road map for navigating the first year of your dog's life.