Available for immediate employment...

Dear potential employer,

I am a hard working, strong willed individual with great interpersonal skills and a constant drive to succeed. Each day I do what I am told and constantly seek approval for more tasks. In fact, if you don't give me enough work, you might find me in the corner of the room gnawing on one of your shoes. All I ask is that you give me a job with consistent commands and appropriate rewards and you can rely on me to give you everything that I have.

Sincerely yours,

- Fido McPoochy

A canine cover letter would likely resemble the above paragraph.

As a dog with several jobs, I can attest to the satisfaction and esteem that I feel every time I get to perform for my human family. In fact if I didn't have enough work to do I might start to wonder if maybe they didn't trust me or didn't think I was a valuable member of the pack.

Dad let's me carry home all the flyers when we visit the mail box at the end of the street. At first, I started out by just carrying one flyer for a few steps. But the longer I held it and the more flyers that I carried, the more rewards and praise I got. Now I try to fit as much as I can in my mouth and I don't dare drop a single piece of paper until we reach the front porch.

Whenever mom and dad get back from the grocery store they invite me out to the minivan and I get to carry a few items into the kitchen.

Every day before my morning and evening meals I entertain dad with a few tricks of his request before dining on my kibble. If I do something extraordinarily well he throws in a couple pieces of cheese, liver or banana... It makes me want to perform as best as I can.

When someone walks up to our front door it's my job to alert the family with one bark, not two, not three, not insistent mind numbing noise. If the doorbell rings I bark once and go to my bed and wait. 

If a visitor comes in, it's my job to wait on my bed and show everyone that I am calm and ready to say hi. After a couple minutes I get invited to meet and shake paws with our visitor which is usually followed by a thorough belly rubbing-my fave!

When I go for walks with dad, he asks me to carry things from time to time. If I do a good job he brings me to a tree or a fire hydrant and I get to sniff for a few minutes. Might not seem like much of a reward but trust me, for a dog this is what I live for. I get to smell all the different dogs in the neighbourhood.

My job as a dog isn't to lay around the house all day, or chase the cat, or bark uncontrollably when someone just happens to walk by the house. My job is to play a productive role in my pack. My humans have given me guidance and made it abundantly clear that good behaviour gets rewarded. Thanks mom and dad!

Gainfully employed and lovin' it,

- Rosco the dog bloggin dog

P.S. My heart goes out to all the people and animals who found themselves in the path of Hurricane Sandy. It's times like this you realize how quickly life can change. If you want to help animals in need during disasters like Sandy, sign up for the Blogger Disaster Response Network. Here's some info from our friends at Blog Paws on how you can help through your own blog or through your social media channels like Twitter and Facebook: http://www.blogpawsbethechange.com/2012/10/news-introducing-the-blogger-disaster-response-network.html

You can't change the world, but you can make a world of difference!