Is Pancho: A Dog Of The Plains Based On A True Story?

Whoa, seeing your dog with a droopy face can feel like a punch to the gut, and I’ve been there watching a pup look off-kilter and wondering what to do next. If the droop appears suddenly — like overnight or after a known injury — I treat it as urgent. Sudden facial droop can come from facial nerve paralysis, a bite or blunt trauma, a stroke-like event, or even tick paralysis in areas where ticks are common. If it’s accompanied by trouble breathing, swallowing, excessive drooling, weakness on one side, or rapid changes in behavior, I’d head to emergency care immediately. For milder, gradual drooping with no other red flags, I still call or visit my regular vet within 24–48 hours so they can examine for infection, dental abscesses, ear disease, or signs of a neurological issue. I always take a quick video showing the droop and note when I first saw it — that saved time during one frantic visit. Bottom line: sudden + severe = go now; gradual or isolated = vet within a day or two. Personally, I sleep better knowing I’ve got an appointment booked when something like this shows up.

I've had a soft spot for awkward-faced dogs my whole life, and when one of my foster dogs developed a visibly droopy face after an ear infection, I learned a lot quickly. First thing I found out was that surgery choices depend on what’s causing the droop. If the facial nerve is being compressed by middle ear disease, a ventral bulla osteotomy to clear infection and decompress the nerve can sometimes restore function. If the nerve was cut or severely damaged, direct nerve repair or nerve grafting (using an autologous graft like sural nerve) may be recommended by a specialist. For chronic or irreversible paralysis, surgeons often do static or dynamic procedures: static options include fascia lata slings or cheiloplasty to support the lip and reduce drooling; dynamic options include muscle transposition such as temporalis muscle transfer to help lift the lip and corner of the mouth. Eyes are usually the most urgent concern. To protect the cornea we used temporary tarsorrhaphy and conjunctival flaps while waiting to see if function returned. For long-term eyelid protection, partial permanent tarsorrhaphy, medial or lateral canthoplasty, or eyelid sling procedures can be done. Recovery and prognosis vary — some idiopathic facial paralyses improve in weeks to months without surgery, while traumatic or neoplastic causes may need early surgical repair. Watching that dog regain some symmetry after a temporalis transposition was quietly joyful, and it made me realize how much small operations can change quality of life.

Grab a pencil and let me walk you through the kinds of drills that actually change how you invent dogs from thin air. Start with gesture and silhouette work: set a timer for 30 seconds and do thirty little dog gestures, focusing only on the line of action and basic proportions. Don’t worry about fur or details — capture the bounce in the spine, the tilt of the head, the weight over the hips. After a bunch of 30-second sketches, do a round of 2–5 minute thumbnails where you simplify the body into ovals, cylinders, and triangles. The point is to make the dog readable from a distance, so try to make each thumbnail readable at thumbnail size before refining it. Next, mix anatomy studies with imagination drills. Spend short sessions drawing skulls, the major limb bones, and the big muscle groups, then immediately invent five dogs that exaggerate one trait from those studies: massive paws, whip tails, barrel chests, or giraffe-length legs. Add memory exercises: study a photo for two minutes, hide it, then redraw from memory. Compare and repeat. Play breed mashup games (combine a greyhound with a corgi, or a husky with a basset) to force you to translate real features into stylized forms. Clay maquettes or poseable toys help if you like hands-on reference. I also recommend value thumbnails and silhouette-only rounds — if a dog still reads with only value blocks or a silhouette, you’ve nailed the design. I learned a lot from books like 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' for observational focus and from various anatomy sketchbooks for specifics, but the key is short, focused repetitions, variety, and having fun inventing characters. After a month of these drills, your imagined dogs start feeling alive, and that never stops making me smile.

Grab a pencil and a scrap of paper — I like starting super small and simple. Begin by drawing a circle for the head and an oval for the body; that tiny scaffold will make everything else feel doable. Put a light guideline across the head so the eyes sit evenly, then add a small sideways oval or rectangle for the snout. For ears, use triangles or floppy rounded shapes depending on the breed you want. Legs are just long rectangles or cylinders, and the tail is a curved line or a tapered teardrop. Keep your lines loose and faint at first — these are guides, not the final lines. Next, connect and refine. Turn the head circle into a dog’s face by drawing the snout out from the circle and placing a little triangular nose at the tip. Add two dots or rounded eyes on the guideline and a smiling mouth line under the snout. Join the head and body with simple neck curves, then shape the legs by adding little ovals for paws. Erase extra construction lines and redraw the silhouette smoother. Practice proportions: for a cartoon puppy, make the head almost as big as the body; for a lanky adult dog, lengthen the body and legs. I like to practice by doing quick drills: sketch twenty tiny dogs in ten minutes using only circle, oval, rectangle rules, change ear and tail types, then pick one and flesh it out with fur lines and shading. Try different postures — sitting, running, sleeping — by rotating those basic shapes. It keeps things fun, and I always feel proud when a goofy little shape actually looks like a dog at the end.

If you're talking about the grey, quiet canine in 'Beastars', the performance that most people remember is by Chikahiro Kobayashi in the original Japanese track. His voice gives this character that low, introspective quality — soft but capable of sudden intensity — which fits the whole moral-ambiguity vibe of the series. The way he handles the quiet, internal moments versus the explosive, emotional beats is what sold Legoshi as more than just a mustached wolf-dog; it made him feel human in his doubts. For English watchers who prefer dubs, Jonah Scott provides the English-language voice. Jonah leans into the awkwardness and the vulnerability with a slightly raspier, breathy approach that makes Legoshi sympathetic from the first scene. Both actors bring different flavors, and I like flipping between them depending on my mood — Japanese when I want the subtler take, English for the immediacy. Honestly, it’s a treat either way and one of those rare casting wins where the voice really defines the character for me.

Oh, 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' is such a gem! I stumbled upon it years ago and still think about Christopher Boone’s unique perspective. While I fully support authors by buying their works, I understand budget constraints. Sadly, I haven’t found legitimate free copies online—piracy hurts creators. But check your local library’s digital lending (Libby/Overdrive) or free trial services like Scribd. Some libraries even mail books! If you adore Mark Haddon’s writing like I do, his other works are worth exploring too. 'A Spot of Bother' has that same blend of humor and heart. Waiting for a library copy builds anticipation—like revisiting an old friend when it finally arrives.

Ever since I picked up 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,' I couldn't put it down—it’s one of those rare books that makes you see the world differently. But I was shocked to learn some schools have banned it. From what I’ve gathered, the objections usually revolve around language and themes. Some parents and educators take issue with the protagonist’s blunt honesty, including occasional swearing, which they argue isn’t appropriate for younger readers. Others find the portrayal of family dysfunction and mental health challenges too intense for certain age groups. What’s wild to me is that these are the very reasons the book is so powerful. Christopher’s perspective as a neurodivergent teen feels raw and real, and the story doesn’t sugarcoat life’s messiness. It’s a shame some schools miss the opportunity to discuss these themes openly—because honestly, kids are already grappling with complex stuff. The book could be a lifeline for someone feeling misunderstood. Instead of banning it, why not use it as a conversation starter?

If you dig into the history of early spaceflight, the story of 'Sputnik 2' and Laika is one of those bittersweet chapters that sticks with me. Laika was a stray Moscow dog launched on 3 November 1957 aboard 'Sputnik 2' — the Soviet spacecraft had no way to bring her back. Within hours of liftoff she stopped responding; later documents and telemetry showed the cabin temperature climbed and her vital signs deteriorated quickly, so scientists eventually concluded she died from overheating and stress rather than lingering on in orbit. For decades the official Soviet line was misleading, which made the truth harder to hear when it finally came out. Reading about it now, I always picture the tiny cramped cabin and the way people then celebrated technology while downplaying the cost. The capsule itself stayed in orbit until it re-entered and burned up on 14 April 1958, so there was never any chance of recovery. Laika’s story sparked real debate about animal welfare in experiments, and today she’s remembered in memorials and art — a reminder of how progress and compassion need to go hand in hand.