Are Mutts Smarter Than Purebred Dogs?
How to Choose Your New Best Friend from an Animal Shelter

Among the biggest victims of the economic recession are the once beloved family pets surrendered to shelters as their owners deal with extended joblessness. The U.S. Humane Society estimates 6 to 8 million dogs and cats enter shelters each year - and 3 to 4 million are euthanized.

"We don't have firm numbers but we know anecdotally that the communities that have been hardest hit by the economic downturn are seeing that reflected in their shelter intake numbers," says Inga Fricke, director of sheltering issues for the U.S. Humane Society.

"And, unfortunately, while the majority of the public is in favor of adopting pets from shelters, very few - usually about 20 percent - actually do. That has recently gone up slightly to the mid-20s."

Fricke and retired police officer Irvin Cannon, a confirmed dog lover whose new book, For the Love of Dog Tales (www.FortheLoveofDogTales.com), gives voice to man's best friend, hope people getting back on their feet will consider adopting a shelter dog.

"You won't find a better companion, whether you bring home a mystery mixed-breed or a purebred Labrador," he says. "Everyone thinks mutts are smarter and generally healthier, but really, it all depends on their mix of breeds and which breed strain is dominant."

Border collies and Rottweilers are two of the smartest breeds, Cannon says. But they tend to have other traits, too, which are just as important to consider when choosing what dog best suits your lifestyle. Remember - dogs are as individual as people. A dog's breed, or breed mix, is no guarantee that it will have certain traits.

That said, border collies tend to need lots of room to run and lots of attention - they're high-maintenance, Cannon says. If you can't spend a lot of active time with them, they'll be unhappy and you'll have problems.

Rottweilers are fast learners and loveable family animals, but they also tend to have bold personalities associated with pack leaders. If you don't think you can assert your authority, or if you have young or shy children, you might want to consider a more submissive breed. Dominant dogs that are allowed to bully their family members can become dangerously aggressive.

Here are some other tidbits regarding breeds:

• Among other dog breeds known for intelligence: Shetland sheepdogs, golden retrievers, Labrador retrievers, poodles, Australian cattle dogs, Papillons and Doberman pinschers.

• Bulldogs, beagles and Basset hounds all start with 'B' but get much lower grades for smarts.

• It's a myth that mutts have fewer health issues than purebred dogs. Because some breeds have tendencies toward problems such as deafness, blindness or hip dysplasia, remember, these are genetic issues that are inherited. So if you're mixed-breed includes some German shepherd, it may also have hip dysplasia (a problem with the joint's bone structure).

• If you're in the market for a purebred dog, you have a 25 percent chance of finding one - although maybe not the breed you want - at a shelter. If your heart is set on a specific breed, check your area for a rescue group specializing in that breed.

About Irvin Cannon

So many people go searching for their true love in nightclubs, singles clubs, through online dating sites and among friends of friends. The truth is, finding true love starts right in your own home - or, more accurately, in your own heart.

Before you can find true love in a relationship, you must find it within yourself.

Here are three simple ways to attain true love for you, yourself, and your life as a whole. You'll be amazed at how quickly romantic love will follow.

• Be thankful for everything (including your mistakes). Learn to be thankful for the good things in your life. That will help you appreciate all the small things and give you a happier, positive outlook (which, by the way, is very attractive.) Be thankful for your mistakes, too. Everything in your life, both the triumphs and the stumbles, shape us as people. Mistakes are valuable learning experiences and, when viewed as such and appreciated, regrets and bitterness of yesterday will fade away. Peace and love will enter in to your life immediately!

• Forgive others so that you can forgive yourself. Forgiving is as much for you as  it is for the person who did you wrong. For starters, when you can forgive others, you can forgive yourself. Some of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else would ever be. We need to be as forgiving of our own faults and misdeeds as we are other people's. Holding onto anger and resentment, whether it's directed at someone else or ourselves, robs us of opportunities for joy. Truly forgive whoever's hurt you - you don't have to like them! - and fully experience happiness.

• Find enjoyment and satisfaction in every day. Strive to find the happiness in your average, workaday life. For most of us, a typical Friday will be a much happier day than a typical Monday, but live each average Monday to its fullest as you would live each fun Friday to the fullest!  If you strive to live in love each day, then you will have no regrets. There are many more average days than holidays and vacations - don't waste them! Find satisfaction in your work, enjoy the process of doing a good job and learning new skills, and every day will be an abundance of joy.

In my book, The Good News: How Revealing Delusions In Christianity Will Bring Peace To All (www.thegoodnewsbook.com), I lay out the numerous biblical instructions to love, forgive and be grateful. If we each apply these simple teachings to our own lives, no matter what our religion, we'll create a happier world.

To both the people with a special someone and those without - be thankful. Love and happiness come from within, not from another person. We all have something to celebrate, not only at Valentine's Day but all year long.

About Shay Dawkins

Shay Dawkins is a Tuscaloosa, Alabama, businessman who grew up in Baptist and Pentecostal churches. His observances about how Christianity can be divisive despite being based on one book led to his analysis of the Bible. Check out his YouTube video, "Why It Should Be About Love, Not Religion."

There's a bright spot in the U.S. employment picture: the health-care industry.

Health-care employers added 17,000 jobs in November, and they've been adding an average 27,000 jobs a month since December 2010, according to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

That's the good news. The bad news is nearly 10,000 health-care workers have lost jobs since August; there were 136 mass layoffs in that time period.

"Finding work in health-care is definitely getting easier, but the stiff competition means you'll need more than credentials to land those jobs," says Stephanie Roberson Barnard, a communications consultant who specializes in training medical professionals to speak and write clearly and effectively.

"Check any online job-hunting Web site for science, technical, pharmaceutical, biotech and medical jobs and you'll find one common requirement: 'excellent communication skills,'" she and co-author Deborah St. James write in their new book, Listen. Write. Present: The Elements for Communicating Science and Technology (Yale University Press; 2012), www.ListenWritePresent.com.

Unfortunately, the science-rich education required for health-care professionals leaves little room for learning how to craft a message for a particular audience, be it an email or a PowerPoint presentation. And that's essential not only for getting jobs, but for keeping them and winning promotions, Barnard says.

She and St. James, deputy director of publications and communications for a North Carolina biotech company, offer these tips for getting your message across:

• Plan: Take time to get to know your clients, colleagues and co-workers. Establish rapport and cultivate a collaborative relationship by finding out about others' interests (check out the pictures in their offices for clues) and inquiring about them. If you have never been to their offices, look them up on Google or their company's Web site. Always keep your personal conversations light and professional.

• Listen: Smile, nod, and acknowledge the speaker - and mean it. Really focus on what the person is saying and not just on the words. Truly effective communication requires your full attention. It's better to spend a few minutes concentrating on the other person's message during a conversation than wasting time trying to remember what he or she said because you were trying to do something else. It's okay to write or type notes as long as you ask permission first.

• Present: Practice. Practice. Practice. Need we say more? Of all the tips we offer, practicing is perhaps the most important one. People in our audiences often suggest that it's possible to over practice. They claim that too much practicing makes a talk appear staged. We have found that the "stiff" presenters are the ones who haven't practiced. They're so busy trying to remember what they're going to say, they can't tune into the audience or deviate from their slides. In contrast, the speakers who have mastered their content seem to glide about the room, exuding just the right amount of enthusiasm.

• Meet: Respect people's time by presenting materials simply. The biggest complaint people have about meetings is that they last too long. For this reason, presenting your ideas in a simple, concise fashion will give you the advantage of appearing focused and prepared. Remember, never compromise content for simplicity.

• Serve: Be kind to others. It costs nothing and requires no skill. Your kind words, good deed, or thoughtful gift may even launch a cascade of positive gestures among others. A recent study by researchers from the University of California San Diego and Harvard University suggests that cooperative behavior spreads among people. This ripple effect can have a wonderful positive impact on the corporate culture of your organization.

"Good leaders must learn to communicate not only within their field of expertise but also to reach people outside their field of authority, influence and passion," Barnard says. "With proper training and practice anyone can become a better communicator."

About Stephanie Roberson Barnard

Stephanie Roberson Barnard has trained thousands of pharmaceutical industry professionals on how to be more effective speakers, writers and communicators. She has also coached hundreds of health-care professionals on presentation skills for FDA hearings, CFO reports and scientific speaker programs, as well as national and international congresses. Her clients include AstraZeneca, Bayer Corporation, WL Gore, and Boehringer Ingelheim. This is her second Yale Press book collaboration with Deborah St. James.

About Deborah St. James

Deborah St. James is Deputy Director of Publications and Scientific Communications at Grifols. She has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry for more than 20 years. Prior to her current position, she was Bayer Corporation's senior manager for national sales training in the pharmaceutical division. She is a former college English instructor and Senior Editor of Better Health magazine.

He was the 31-year-old stockbroker dubbed "The Wall Street Whiz Kid" by Good Morning America's Steve Crowley for his uncanny knack of predicting market highs and lows.

Now, after 25 years and two debilitating bouts of clinical depression, Peter Grandich, author of  Confessions of a Wall Street Whiz Kid, (www.confessionsofawallstreetwhizkid.com), says Americans' market-driven fixation on amassing a fortune is driving us crazy.

"The fight to keep up with the Joneses is leading to more people with intolerable levels of anxiety and stress, which contribute to serious mental health problems," says Grandich, who runs Trinity Financial Sports & Entertainment Management Co., a firm that specializes in offering professional athletes, celebrities and the general public estate planning from a Christian perspective.

A January Gallup poll found Americans at their highest money stress levels in 10 years, with 51 percent worried about maintaining their standard of living.

"Our whole culture now is built on the premise that we have to have more money and more stuff to feel happy and secure," he says. "Public storage is the poster child for what's wrong with America. We have too much stuff because we've bought into the myth fabricated by Wall Street and Madison Avenue, which rely on millions of people driven to make more money so they can profit from this insane quest."

Grandich was one of those people, he says. He loved making money, making more, and spending it. By his mid-30s, he was a multi-millionaire suffering his first disabling panic attacks. Looking back, he says, part of the problem was a life out of balance.

"My priorities were, No. 1, me, my reputation and my ego, and then my wife and our daughter," he says. "There was not much else."

Everything rode on how he did in the market, and when that wavered, Grandich grew increasingly anxious. Within a year of his first panic attack, bouts of crippling anxiety and hopelessness rooted as a deep and pervasive depression. Twice, he came to the point of attempting suicide.

In 1995, Grandich left the professional money management and brokerage business, but it took him several more years to find his way back to enjoying his life. He wants to warn others caught up in the money chase, and to offer hope to the one in 10 Americans who suffer depression.

He offers this guidance from his own experience:

• Anybody who has suffered depression more than once is at risk to go through it again. Grandich says he learned he is genetically predisposed to clinical depression because of his family history. "Be prepared to understand that it will always be with you," he says. "It's medically driven due to chemical imbalances in the brain."

• Get professional help. Without medical help you have no chance. "For me, it was talk therapy and pharmaceutical intervention to flip that chemical switch in my brain," Grandich says. "You can't just 'snap out of it' because you don't think rationally."

• It's not a sign of weakness and nothing to be ashamed about. With men especially, the "macho thing" gets in the way of seeking help, Grandich notes. It's not something that can be fixed with will power or that you can just snap out of; the brain is injured.

• Get seriously reacquainted with your Creator. Grandich grew up without religion and became a Catholic simply to marry his wife. He had no spiritual anchor and his relationship to God was "the occasional 9-1-1call." He has found comfort in recognizing that there is "someone bigger than me" in control and in having rules that make sense for governing his life. When friends ask, "What if it turns out there really is no God and no afterlife?" he says, "It's still a better way to live."

Grandich says he's grateful for the revelations he experienced, and that he found a way out of the painful darkness.

"I'm satisfied it happened for a reason, and not to use my experience to help others would be unfair," he says. "The blessing for me is, I've been shown the mess I was. There are still a lot of people out there who don't yet realize that, if money is their god, they're headed for a lot of suffering."

About Peter Grandich

Peter Grandich became renowned in the financial industry when he predicted market crashes and rebounds in The Grandich Letter, a newsletter he created in 1984. It's currently a blog featuring his commentary on the world's economies and financial markets as well as social and political topics. Grandich is co-founder, with former New York Giants player Lee Rouson, of Trinity Financial Sports & Entertainment Management Co., a firm that specializes in offering guidance from a Christian perspective to professional athletes and celebrities.