"Olive (left) and Rosa (right) very much wanted to go to BEA with me," says Ben Salmon, an agent at Rights Unlimited. "Unfortunately, I couldn't get the Reed folks to issue me badges for them, so Rosa had to be removed from the suitcase and the two Wunder Dachshunds had to stay home. But don't worry, I've been paying for that act of cruelty ever since."

"Ginny is the cutest dog ever," explains Christine Fletcher, author of Tallulah Falls, "because 1) she has an underbite that only shows when she's sleepy or when she really, really wants something (like the crust off your pizza); 2) she has greyhound ears on a labrador head, that bounce up and down when you take her for a walk; and 3) she was supposed to shuffle off this mortal coil a year ago due to incurable liver disease—but instead she's still running around like an idiot, bouncy ears, underbite and all, sleeping on the bed and eating all the pizza crust she can wheedle out of us. Really, who could resist that face? Well, Death, apparently. But not us!"

"My dog Gobo is cute because he bites puppies and people, yet he's scared of coffee and plastic bags that blow in the wind," writes Joe Miller, whose Cross-X comes out next month. "My fiancee and I got him at a garage sale and named after our favorite restaurant in New York City. Please post his picture on the Internet." You bet, Joe! (And if the starred review in Publishers Weekly didn't get you interested in Cross-X, let me assure you it's the Hoop Dreams of high school debate squad, and if it's not on the NBA and NBCC shortlists, there'll be some explaining to do.)