Our best friends: They can be pets or working dogs; they race for sticks and balls or find survivors of disasters, and they are the subjects of some of the most amazing and touching stories:

• Employees of the Albany post office adopted a stray puppy named Owney, and in his life he traveled hundreds of thousands of miles with the mail to places around the world
• John Dignard, victim of a brain injury, introduced the concept of memory dogs by training a German shepherd to help him
• Rescue dogs working 9/11 found a few survivors, and the remains they uncovered provided closure for grieving families
• Times were tough for Jude Stringfellow, but a bipedal puppy named Faith taught her to hope again
• The Sica family’s golden retriever, Bullet, saved their three-week-old son from certain death from an undiagnosed heart condition
• Stubby, a mongrel boxer mutt, became a hero on the front lines when his frenetic barking alerted sleeping soldiers to poisonous gas
• Skippy, a hearing-ear dog, has given Kerena Marchant a taste of what freedom really means
• Blue heeler cross Skidboot has made appearances on Jay Leno, Oprah and the Late Show with David Letterman to perform his amazing tricks
• And so many more heartwarming stories.