Dan Yaccarino is awesome. I’ve had more than one opportunity to hear him speak and I adore his books and television shows. Both his words and his art are filled with humor, intelligence and humanity.

Dan’s show Willa’s Wild Life is my daughter Harper’s absolute favorite. And have you read Unlovable? Oh man, my whole family adores this book. “How could anyone not love his curly little tail?” Harper asks, every single time we read it. We were really excited at the TLA this year to add the super cute Lawn to Lawn, with its tale of left behind lawn ornaments, to our collection of autographed Dan Yaccarino books.

BUT, ever since I first watched Dan’s hit TV series Oswald, I’ve been a little suspicious. You see, the show’s main character, Oswald, is a big blue octopus with a constant companion, Weenie, a wiener dog. This scenario was a little too familiar to me.

My dog Baron, a wiener dog, has long had a blue octopus companion. Baron and his octopus have the most amazingly special relationship. When he was a pup, Baron suckled the octopus as if it was his mother. He slept with his mouth around the octopus. He barked with his mouth around the octopus. He carried the octopus from room to room to room with him. And when he got his head stuck in a Kleenex box, he chewed a hole in the end of box so that he could still carry the octopus from room to room to room with him. To this day, our weenie dog is devoted to his big blue octopus.

Coincidence, you say? Well, after watching the show for the first time, I thought that the most obvious explanation was that Dan must also have a wiener dog at home who is an octopus devotee.

I was enormously happy to finally get the chance at TLA to ask Dan about it. Do you have wiener dog at home and, if so… “No,” said Dan.

Bummer.

So, the question still remains, if Dan hasn’t actually witnessed this magical and strange cephalopod-canine relationship, how in the world did he come up with it? I can only think of two possibilities:

1. Dan Yaccarino is a creative genius.

2. Dan Yaccarino is stalking my dog.

I’m not sure which answer I’m leaning toward, but, either way, Dan Yaccarino is still awesome.