Last week, we blogged about the teaser for Volkswagen’s Super Bowl 46 ad, which featured a chorus of dogs barking “The Imperial March” from Star Wars. A continuation of 2011’s Super Bowl theme, “The Bark Side” was essentially an ad for an ad, and it has logged more than 11 million hits online.

On Wednesday, the carmaker released the actual game day ad, which stars a beautiful dog namd Bolt. Does it live up to the hype?

Einstein—breaking hearts, as usual.

I recently returned from a trip to Kenya, where stray and feral dogs are the norm and pampered pets very much the exception. I came to know a few of the former sort quite well.

For about a week, my sister and I camped in a rural area on the grounds of a school that is under construction. Along with us, were the school’s founder, also from the U.S., and 45 high school girls, a cooking crew and a construction crew—all from Kenya.

Will Doig’s column “The Secret Lives of Feral Dogs” (Slate, 1/17/12) opens with a jolt: the revelation that Harrisburg, Penn., police officers have been instructed to stop bringing strays into the city shelter and, among other options, shoot them instead. It’s a shocking development, something you might expect to read about in the developing world, not here.

I'd love to dream of Lulu. I wonder if she ever dreamed of me?

The other night as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about how much I’d love to dream about my dog Lulu, who died in August. I’ve only had one dream about her since then, and it felt like she was back, which means it felt wonderful. But when I woke the following morning, I didn’t have any memory that I’d been successful in my efforts to conjure her.