What started four years ago as a newsletter advocating an off-leash park in Berkeley has blossomed into a full-fledged magazine, published quarterly and recognized by the Utne Reader as the Best of the Alternative Press for lifestyle coverage. Even Esquire thinks The Bark is cool. And so do we. Though the "modern dog culture magazine" focuses on, well, dogs, it also emphasizes culture, with something to offer all readers: well-written, well-thought-out articles (topics range from training to alternative health, activism, and travel); wonderful literary excerpts from writers such as Maeve Brennan, Anne Lamott, J.R. Ackerley, Jeanette Winterson, and Gertrude Stein; interviews with vets, authors, and visual artists; commentary from folks like Cynthia Heimel and Lynda Barry (the latter done in comic-strip form of course); and outstanding photography and illustrations by the likes of Mark Ulriksen, Amanda Jones, Roy de Forest, and Michael S. Wertz. The Bark will make you laugh, it'll make you cry (with its poetic memorials to pals past), it'll make you sit up and beg for the next issue.