OK, picture this. You're coming home from a hard day at work. The boss was a jerk. The workload was crushing. Your efforts went unappreciated. And you lost a dollar in the Coke machine.

Weary and spent, you open your door. There's a clattering from the next room, and, in a furry flash, all the things you feel have been drained from you --- all the joy, energy, love of life, innocence, loyalty, enthusiasm and free spiritedness --- come bounding toward you, on four legs.

It jumps up and down. It pants. Its pulse rate soars. Its tail wags. It nuzzles and licks and wiggles. It looks like its fur can barely contain its glee.

You know how happy your dog is when you get home? That's how delighted we are you're here --- tail-wagging, face-licking, bouncing up-and-down, barely-controlling-our bladder, panting-hot-doggie-breath-in-your-face happy.

Welcome to the Mutts page.

Here's what we're all about: In the narrowest sense, we're about the mutt --- the kind of dog, like mine and maybe yours, that has no pedigree and will win no beauty contest; the kind of dog that, more often than its purebred counterparts, ends up abandoned, neglected or in shelters; the dog that, while it doesn't fit under neat "breed" labels, is clearly one of a kind.

In the broadest sense, we're about animals, humans included, and the precept that they, as living things, deserve to be treated with respect and dignity --- from the homeless man on the street corner, to the purebred poodle getting a pedicure, from the goldfish in the aquarium to the horseshoe crab on the shore. We are here not just for the underdog, but the undercat, the underferret, the underbug and the undergerbil as well.

You can call us a "pet page," you can call us a "blog," you can call us a "resource page" or a "digest" --- whatever. But we're not as boring as any of those things sound. We don't like labels, anyway, and we have no intention of staying within the boundaries prescribed for us. We dislike fences; we dislike leashes; we sometimes get unruly. We hate the word "appropriate."

In this space, you can read my dispatches, several times a week. Sometimes they will involve the adventures of Ace (see the video, "Hey Mister, What Kind of Dog is That?" for an introduction to my mutt). Sometimes they will be about the adventures of yours. Sometimes they will be filled with facts about pet issues; sometimes they will contain opinion. Sometimes, we'll be wagging our tail; sometimes we'll growl.

On this page, you'll find links to stories written by myself and other Sun reporters about pets and animals; helpful lists of people, companies and organizations that provide services for dogs; a calendar of pet-related events, and links to tons --- yes, tons, I actually weighed it --- of useful pet information.

You'll also find a regular adopt-a-pet feature, in video form, and that will be the first of many additions to our always-evolving page.

While our heart belongs to mutts, we're about all pets and animals --- (see, for example, my story on feeding feral cats at Nick's Fish House, clearly a result of too much Dr. Seuss in my childhood ... and don't give up on me yet, cat-people.)

Right now, as blogs go, we are a puppy. We've got an awkward stage to go through. We may make some messes --- sometimes, even, we may make them on purpose. But watch us grow.

Like Checkers, the dog that saved Richard Nixon, there's no way to predict what we might grow into.

Like the refrigerator-raiding Nemo, there's no telling where we might venture.

And there's no telling what we might leave in our wake. So watch your step.

If we have a philosophy, it is this: All animals benefit us, and dogs in particular make us better people; they have for thousands of years --- unconditionally, unwaveringly.

It's time to pay them back.