In 1987, John Woestendiek won a Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for The Philadelphia Inquirer. "For outstanding prison beat reporting, which included proving the innocence of a man convicted of murder," the Pulitzer citation reads.

In May of 2007, he launched a pets blog for The Baltimore Sun.

"To dogblog or not dogblog," Mr. Woestendiek wrote recently. "That was the question."

He was speaking rhetorically.

Over the past two weeks, Mr. Woestendiek has filed items on everything from how raisins can cause fatal renal failure in dogs, to restaurants banning dogs, to dogs getting married.

"When you write about dogs, I've found from previous experience, you always get more reaction than anything else," Mr. Woestendiek recently explained to The Observer by phone. "I think cat stories do pretty good, too."

His dog blog anchors a new multimedia portal on The Sun's Web site, called Mutts. In addition...