Saturday, April 01, 2006
'Must have been the dog' excuse no longer cuts it
(Guelph Mercury, April 1, 2006)
CHUCK BROWN
OUT THERE
Our family dog, Lucy, is a relatively personable animal, for a herding dog, who only occasionally tries to bite people and only if they try to break away from the flock. Those people, in doggy terms, had it coming.
Most of the time, though, she's much calmer, with emotions ranging from "asleep" to "just resting." This is because she turns nine today, or, in people years, Cher age.
But Lucy has her charms. She has sad-looking eyes which she uses to will people to give her something to chew on -- she prefers crunchy, cheesy or lamby. If the sad eyes fail, she barks. We don't know what happens if the barking fails. It never fails.
We've learned to live with the herd-dog edginess and the diva-like demands to give Lucy a good life, but she's still a dog and she still gets accused of plenty of wrongdoing.
She's been blamed for eating anything from our daughter's leftover Kraft Dinner that had long ago congealed into a macaroni tetherball to a KFC snack pack -- we never did find the coleslaw cup -- to, well, I don't know how else to describe the stuff she finds in Sassy the cat's litter box other than by using the technical term "poopsicles."
The other main digression for which Lucy catches blame is barfing on the rug, something she likes to do after a satisfying meal of almost anything but dog food.
She never barfs on linoleum or tile or wood floors. She likes the rug. Only she knows why and, unfortunately, she forgets about three seconds after she barfs because, as a dog, she has her mind on more important matters, namely, "Mmmm. Barf. I wonder who put that there."
Lucy then eats it because, like all dogs, she shares Tom Green's sense of humour. And when she eats it, the entire family cringes and says, "Ewwwwww!" but no one actually jumps in to stop her because we're all thinking, "Phwew. At least I don't have to clean THAT up."
But while Lucy gets accused of many things, she is most proper in the area of gaseous emissions. She never takes the fall for someone else's indiscretions because Lucy, ever the lady -- puke-breath notwithstanding -- simply doesn't engage in any "pull-my-finger" style shenanigans.
We've talked to a vet about this, but as long as she doesn't inflate to the size of Michael Moore, she's fine.
Not all dogs have this problem of course. Dogs, as a species, are generally well known for their room-clearing ability. They commonly release things into the atmosphere that make the eyes of their human owners water as they question whether there's a (CHOOSE ANY COMBINATION OF TWO: squirrel that died at Woodstock, wheel of gourmet cheese or teenager doused in Axe body spray) in the room.
This canine-induced air pollution is one of the reasons we can be thankful for Science. Because Science has conquered and cured all major medical conditions -- except a few like bird flu, cancer, Alzheimer's, the common cold and Simon Cowell -- it has turned its attention to the dog.
A company called Flat-D Innovations Inc. has developed a type of "thong" that neutralizes dog gas. Called, creatively, the Dog Gas Neutralizing Pad, the company claims the device, a washable charcoal cloth, eliminates odours caused by dog "flatus'' (or, in scientific terminology, "barking spiders'' or a "crunchy frog.'' And, they say, the dog gas-catching thong is comfortable to wear. This raises an important question that we hope never gets answered -- how do they know?
Flat D's neutralizing pad also raises a more serious concern -- who will guys blame if they can't blame the dog? Is the science behind the dog thong taking us back to a time when we blamed miniature elephants and squeaky seat cushions?
Are we right back to the old "whoever smelt it dealt it" argument? And if we can no longer say, "Must've been the dog" about THAT, then who's to say we won't start getting blamed for the barf on the rug, too? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with letting dogs escape the finger of blame. I'll be less comfortable when I hear, "My dad ate my homework."
CHUCK BROWN
OUT THERE
Our family dog, Lucy, is a relatively personable animal, for a herding dog, who only occasionally tries to bite people and only if they try to break away from the flock. Those people, in doggy terms, had it coming.
Most of the time, though, she's much calmer, with emotions ranging from "asleep" to "just resting." This is because she turns nine today, or, in people years, Cher age.
But Lucy has her charms. She has sad-looking eyes which she uses to will people to give her something to chew on -- she prefers crunchy, cheesy or lamby. If the sad eyes fail, she barks. We don't know what happens if the barking fails. It never fails.
We've learned to live with the herd-dog edginess and the diva-like demands to give Lucy a good life, but she's still a dog and she still gets accused of plenty of wrongdoing.
She's been blamed for eating anything from our daughter's leftover Kraft Dinner that had long ago congealed into a macaroni tetherball to a KFC snack pack -- we never did find the coleslaw cup -- to, well, I don't know how else to describe the stuff she finds in Sassy the cat's litter box other than by using the technical term "poopsicles."
The other main digression for which Lucy catches blame is barfing on the rug, something she likes to do after a satisfying meal of almost anything but dog food.
She never barfs on linoleum or tile or wood floors. She likes the rug. Only she knows why and, unfortunately, she forgets about three seconds after she barfs because, as a dog, she has her mind on more important matters, namely, "Mmmm. Barf. I wonder who put that there."
Lucy then eats it because, like all dogs, she shares Tom Green's sense of humour. And when she eats it, the entire family cringes and says, "Ewwwwww!" but no one actually jumps in to stop her because we're all thinking, "Phwew. At least I don't have to clean THAT up."
But while Lucy gets accused of many things, she is most proper in the area of gaseous emissions. She never takes the fall for someone else's indiscretions because Lucy, ever the lady -- puke-breath notwithstanding -- simply doesn't engage in any "pull-my-finger" style shenanigans.
We've talked to a vet about this, but as long as she doesn't inflate to the size of Michael Moore, she's fine.
Not all dogs have this problem of course. Dogs, as a species, are generally well known for their room-clearing ability. They commonly release things into the atmosphere that make the eyes of their human owners water as they question whether there's a (CHOOSE ANY COMBINATION OF TWO: squirrel that died at Woodstock, wheel of gourmet cheese or teenager doused in Axe body spray) in the room.
This canine-induced air pollution is one of the reasons we can be thankful for Science. Because Science has conquered and cured all major medical conditions -- except a few like bird flu, cancer, Alzheimer's, the common cold and Simon Cowell -- it has turned its attention to the dog.
A company called Flat-D Innovations Inc. has developed a type of "thong" that neutralizes dog gas. Called, creatively, the Dog Gas Neutralizing Pad, the company claims the device, a washable charcoal cloth, eliminates odours caused by dog "flatus'' (or, in scientific terminology, "barking spiders'' or a "crunchy frog.'' And, they say, the dog gas-catching thong is comfortable to wear. This raises an important question that we hope never gets answered -- how do they know?
Flat D's neutralizing pad also raises a more serious concern -- who will guys blame if they can't blame the dog? Is the science behind the dog thong taking us back to a time when we blamed miniature elephants and squeaky seat cushions?
Are we right back to the old "whoever smelt it dealt it" argument? And if we can no longer say, "Must've been the dog" about THAT, then who's to say we won't start getting blamed for the barf on the rug, too? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with letting dogs escape the finger of blame. I'll be less comfortable when I hear, "My dad ate my homework."
