pet connection

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love The Bark. Here’s what I wrote for my syndicated column based on my visit there last month:

Dog Lit

Time magazine called The Bark "the New Yorker for dog lovers." Oprah calls it a "must read." Famous writers and illustrators are delighted to be asked for contributions, and a Hollywood production company wants to use the magazine’s signature "Dog Is My Co-Pilot" bumper sticker on the set of an upcoming blockbuster.

"We hope the scene doesn’t get cut," says The Bark’s Claudia Kawczynska, eyebrows raised in "Can you believe this is happening to us?" fashion during a recent interview at the magazine’s storefront office in Berkeley, Calif. Kawczynska is the magazine’s co-founder and its editorial voice; her partner (and life partner) Cameron Woo has also been there from the first and is responsible for the magazine’s lush, cutting-edge design.

Together, they produce an award-winning magazine that stands out in the pet category like a red-spotted Dalmatian at a dog show.

Dog lovers are still just beginning to take notice — 75,000 loyal readers in an industry where circulations many times larger don’t guarantee a magazine’s survival. No matter: The Bark is thriving, with plans for expansion and a second book deal in the works.

"People were really interested in reading about dogs in a way that wasn’t in print," says Kawczynska of the publication’s founding in 1997. Its steady growth is in the hands of two people who are honest with their readers, are enthusiastic champions of good writing and design, and (no surprise here) are devoted lovers of all things canine.

Writing about dogs is nothing new, of course. Eugene O’Neill once wrote about the death of his dog in a heartbreakingly lovely piece that’s often sent to anyone who has had to put down a beloved old dog. In the early decades of the last century, Albert Payson Terhune wrote book after book on his Sunnybank collies, so many stories that for a time he was the country’s best-selling author, more so than his better-remembered friend Sinclair Lewis.

But by the time The Bark was whelped as a regional newsletter advocating areas for off-leash recreation, the market for dog lit was very small indeed. Mainstream pet publications were more interested in bland how-to, and the more literary of the general-circulation magazines that survived into the new century did little more than grudgingly toss dog lovers a bone now and then.

The homeless works that weren’t getting published — the short stories, the essays, the photographs, cartoons and illustrations — have found their forever home in The Bark.

"A lot of people have stuff about dogs that didn’t make it into print. We knew it was in their drawers, and we asked for it," says Woo, telling of the New Yorker cartoonist who when asked if he had any rejected dog cartoons sent over a stack for the couple to go through.

"We went to bookstores and looked on the jackets for pictures of writers we liked," says Kawczynska. "When we saw them pictured with a dog, we’d contact them to see if they had anything for us."

They surely did, with authors from Alice Walker to Erica Jong and more offering pieces for pages of The Bark. "Cameron and I scratched our heads and thought, ‘We might have something here,’" says Kawczynska.

Advertisers were thinking so, too, especially after Woo and Kawczynska took a big leap of faith, leaving their jobs and converting the publication from newsletter to glossy magazine. Although The Bark is different from many magazines in that the content isn’t designed to support — or at least not detract from — advertisers, some of the big names started sniffing around. The first was Saab, trying to reach dog lovers with a model equipped with dog-friendly options. Jeep was not far behind, along with anyone looking to tap into an affluent, dog-crazy demographic.

Along with some of the best writing around — best-selling author Pam Houston has a piece in the current issue — The Bark has expanded to include serious, cutting-edge reporting that can rarely be found elsewhere, on canine health, training, and on issues that recall those that got The Bark its start.

After all, it’s still all about the dogs. "I hope my enthusiasm for the subject matter is reflected in the magazine," says Kawczynska.

"Our interest in doing the magazine certainly hasn’t peaked," says Woo, in what has to be good news for anyone who loves dogs and good writing.

The regular price of a subscription to The Bark is $15 per year for five issues, but the magazine is currently running a holiday special — $8 for additional subscriptions with the purchase of one at full price. To subscribe, call 1-877-227-5639, or go to the Web site, www.thebark.com. For $20, the magazine is also offering a year’s subscription bundled with a paperback copy of The Bark’s anthology, "Dog Is My Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship" (Crown).

The holidays really wear me down — too many people supporting bad or downright cruel breeding in their lust for a Christmas puppy. Buying decisions have consequences: Why not do something positive for dogs instead, and support a publication like The Bark?

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