Description: Veterinarian/anthropologist/professor Michael Tan's Philippine Daily Inquirer opinion columns

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

URL: http://pinoykasi.homestead.com/

Random Quote:

DURING a visit to Bangkok last November, I read about a new book written by King Bhumibol Adulyadej with the self-explanatory title: "Biography of a Pet Dog." Off I went to the bookstores, but they had sold out all of 100,000 copies.
Last month on another visit to Bangkok, I finally got a copy of the book and was amazed to find out it had been reprinted nine times between November 2002 and January 2003, for a total print run of 650,000 copies.
I'm sure the king's popularity contributed to the book's sale. But possibly another reason for the brisk sales was the Thais' general fondness for dogs. With rising income and a growing middle class, there's status attached as well to having dogs, preferably purebred ones.
And that's what makes the king's book so amazing. The book focuses on Tongdaeng, clearly the favorite among the king's many dogs. The book has numerous photographs of a light brown dog -- thus the name Tongdaeng, which means "copper" in Thai -- with features that show she's a mixture of many different breeds.