Rat Terrorism

You've probably read that quote under our picture at the top. Jonah Goldberg at NRO understands the way of the world when it comes to who's really pullin' their weight in the War on Terror.

But just in case you fe-lying lovers out there think Jonah (and me) are being unduly harsh in our judgment, here's proof cats don't give a hairball about the terrorist threats we face.

"Portland resident Jason Reinhardt watches them on late-night walks around the waterfront. “I can see tons of them climbing up from the roped tires hanging over the river. They’re huge, and they’re not afraid of much,” he said.

"Rats are in no way new Portland residents, but local rat encounters like Reinhardt’s seem to be infiltrating office and happy hour conversations all over the city. Even local exterminators have noticed a pickup in their rat calls.
[…]
“We’re all in shock with the amount of rodents the city has to deal with,” Larsen said. “It used to be that we got more calls once the rains started and the rats moved inside, but nowadays the rodent season is year-round.”

Proof the fe-lyings are falling down on the job. Cats catch rats. (Jack Russells are supposed to do rats too, but ever since Eddie hit it big on Fraiser they're all obsessing about getting into show biz.)

"Bird lovers also may be inadvertently luring rats to their neighborhoods. “You’ll get a single individual who decides to feed pigeons in the park, for example, and rats start migrating to that area and the infestation becomes really obvious,” said county health officer Oxman"

That's what ya' get for feeding the pigeons, fool. And they don't appreciate it, either. All they give back is a white shower of poop. Just ask Rich Lowry over at NRO. ('Course he is covering the Demo-cat Convention so it might have been fallout from some of those shitty speeches.)

“Rodents were approaching people where they ate. When you see rats in the middle of the day, you know it’s bad,” Larsen said. “We set up 24 bait stations and we went through 28 pounds of rat poison in the first two weeks.”

Of course if all those people were walking with a dog they wouldn't have to worry about being approached by panhandling rats. You can't walk a cat on a leash, ya' know.

"But outside of encouraging people to keep their surroundings rodent-free, rats are going to coexist with humans. “There’s not a lot you can do to curb an entire rat population, besides taking away the food source,” said Ruedas, who then joked about unleashing wild cats into the city.

Yeah, cats are a joke, all right.

"But don’t laugh off the cat solution too quickly, said PGE Park spokesman Collin Romer. He’s referring to the notorious pack of feral cats — more than a dozen in all — that inhabit the area behind the bullpen in left field. PGE employees, who dubbed the area “Feral Cat Alley,” have even set up a feline feeding station. “A stadium has a lot of food scraps, and to not see a rat in four years — well, we owe that to the cats,” Romer said. “If the city has a problem with rats, I’d recommend some wild cats.”

Well, stop feeding the deadbeats, you idiot, and maybe they'll have to hunt for their own food like--oh--rats!

"Other creative suggestions to curb the local rat population: mandatory compost caps; a city-led rat campaign to raise awareness among the public; and even feeding the rodents birth control pills."

They'll have to check with the Scots to see if this plan will bear fruit--er--not bear fruit, that is. (No info on whether Planned Parenthood is offering free abortions.)

"So Portland rats — veiled in a kind of urban hear-no-evil, see-no-evil — may for now go officially uncounted."

Kinda' sounds like our immigration policy toward Muslims, doesn't it?

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Lawn and Garden Advice

Since Martha Stewart is out of commission for a few months, I thought I'd pick up the slack to ease the transition.

Today was lawn-mowing day. Not our favorite activity but if AHM didn't push the effin' machine around from time to time we'd all get lost in the tall grass. Little Girl really hates it--barks like mad and tries to attack the mower. She comes from a broken home and is a few scoops short of a full bag of dog food, if you get my meaning.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we're entertaining. For the past few days Miss Garbo has been with us while her humans are on vacation. (We're just good friends, okay?--so you National Enquirer people can stop calling.) Garbo is one gorgeous bitch--elegant, snowy white (when she arrives, that is) with refined features and a plumey tail. She can be eccentric, though, like her namesake. (Speaking of being a few scoops short…)

Lawn-mowing is a noisy, smelly, but generally uneventful activity--if you ignore Little Girl, that is. Except for today. So--because of today--here's the first two of my lawn and garden tips:

Tip #1 for AHM: scoop before you mow so the supervisory crew doesn't get smacked in the kisser with mower-chopped pieces of petrified dog poop.

Tip #2 for Miss Garbo: those pieces are not the newest taste sensation from Kibbles'n Bits®. Neither are they being thrown up so you can leap about like a demented kangaroo, snapping them from mid air and landing squarely on yours truly. That does not endear you to me, no matter how sexy you are. Do it again and I guarantee you will go home with a few less plumes in your tail. Got it?

Next time: a discussion of weeding and mulching--dog style.

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Come to the Cabaret…

I came, I saw, I have a hangover…

Dancing dogs take their partners for centre's canine cabaret night"

"You may not fancy the idea of a tango with a terrier or a polka with a poodle but it wouldn't faze the 200 animal lovers who flocked to a pet care centre in Leeds."

Tango with a terrier? Reality check here. This terrier don't tango! I tangle--and I only tangle with pseudo-studs and fe-lyings who try to move in on my territory. And the occasional hot babe who visits for my attentions…

"Many of them have been literally swept off their feet by their four-legged friends in a doggy-dancing craze which has seen bow-wows bop to anything from Riverdance to Hound Dog. Leading the panting dance troupe in the three-hour "Canine Cabaret Night" at the newly-opened Mypetstop in Tingley was celebrity trainer Mary Ray."

Ooooo. I'm all tingly at the thought of a bow-wow bop… (Okay, sorry. It was too easy.)

"Mrs Ray first began using musical routines to teach dogs obedience in 1990. Since then her "heel to music" techniques have been demonstrated at top dog show Crufts and on numerous TV programmes, including recent hit series Faking It. She and her husband-manager, Dave Ray, estimated there were at least 1,000 dogs dancing in the UK."

Ya' know, once upon a time the sun never set on the British Empire. Now we know why the sun went down. Embarrassment.

"[Mrs. Ray] insisted that her canine choreography did not degrade dogs and that it was not unusual behaviour for dogs to stand on their hind legs. "When people dance around their rooms at home most dogs try and join in," she said, "and getting up on their back legs is quite natural for them."

This lady has it soooo wrong. First, AHM doesn't dance around her rooms. (Okay, she did a couple of times when she was watching that Richard Simmons "Sweatin' to the Oldies" video, but the pups and me handled that. Note for future reference: video tape is much harder to bite through than originally expected--it stretches.)

Second, it is not natural for me to get up on my back legs unless there's a cute babe involved. And displaying my swag for all to see? Not that it isn't impressive, mind you, but finding a raincoat in my size is a bitch.

"The owner of six dogs herself, Mrs Ray said border collies were the quickest to learn steps, golden retrievers looked "nice and stylish" when they got going and poodles loved to act the clown anyway. And Great Danes did a great Scooby Do routine."

Border collies again! I told you they were suck-ups. French poodles? Hell! Where's that groundhog when you need him? As far as Great Danes… From what I've heard, that Scooby Do dog is a total embarrassment to them. And golden retrievers are "nice and stylish?" Suuurre they are--like Chewbacca doing the cha-cha.

"…Beryl Naden, of Kippax, said she would not be dancing in the street with her borderline [sic] terrier Jess just yet. [I think the writer meant border terrier.] The pet-lover, in her sixties, said she and her pet had tried dancing together to Mozart. She said: "We only did it once and we weren't very good at all. But we enjoyed it and will try it again."

On the other paw, they're both "borderline" if they were trying out the minuet. Imagine Miss Marple and Benji…

"…Dorothy Harvey…said she already sang to her dogs so jiving round the room with them certainly would not be a problem. ["Jiving round the room?" Someone hose this writer down, please.] "We have just got a new Cavalier King Charles puppy. He's a bright little thing but I'm not sure which music we'll do it to," she said."

He's a fop. But hey, anything is possible. Dim the lights, put out some fresh-dried liver, and try Ravel's Bolero. That's one of my favorites to "do it to."

"…Mrs Ray is…due to visit the US, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea – where a training centre has been set up at the Seoul headquarters of electronics company Samsung to try to change attitudes in the country towards man's best friend."

Oh damn. That's all we need to do! Drive Kim Chong-il into dropping a big one over the border.

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Human Social Disorder

Sounds like somethin' that should be treated with a shot of penicillin, doesn't it? But everyone seems to be talkin' about it these days, and shutting down their blog "comments" because the debate has come as close to virtual reality blows as it can without entering real reality. Just some samples:

Michelle at A Small Victory (and The Command Post).

"The more I think about it, the more I realize that the problems bloggers are having with commenters is just a microcosm of what's going on at large in the country today."

CJ at The Unmentionables doesn't appear very sympathetic with the post-9/11 righties, however.

"For many of those now complaining of how "personalized" the insults have become--those only-slightly-left-of-center people who made an abrupt right turn after 9/11--the invectives leveled against every Republican and/or conservative from Newt Gingrich on down were just fine--and probably justified.

"Today, with the popularity and influence of blogging, the insults are directed against them and they don't like it very much.

"Welcome to the trenches, people. Pardon me if I don't cry for you… [W]hile your sleep is troubled with nightmares of a return to the 60's, remember you were the enablers for all the ensuing years. Now you deal with it."

Oookaaay

Jim at Smoke on the Water (who sounds like a great guy except for--once again {sigh}--the cat situation) recalls a time not quite so long ago.

"Our Hard Hats of today are beating the Left without having to resort to using pipes wrapped in flags, crowbars or the like. Instead, they're educated, informed, articulate and bold beyond words. And the Left fears them more than they ever feared taking a beating in '68.

"In 1968, the hippies loved having film-clips of their bloodied visages playing on the evening news. Such images turned sympathies to their cause, no matter how wrong they actually were.

"And we're not giving them those images to play with, this time. At least, not yet. And not unless it comes to us defending ourselves, our families and homes and our Nation.

"But if it comes to that, we're ready.

"My God, how we are ready."

The Grouchy Old Yorkie Lady (who isn't grouchy at all but that wouldn't matter anyway 'cause she has DOGS) has it right.

"So while I agree with Michelle that we are standing at the edge of a significant social and political divide, I don't agree that the right is equally culpable in bringing us there, or that we are all "victims and losers" in the cultural war that is brewing.

It sure as hell wasn't right-wing conservatives at that Kerry/Edwards fundraiser conveying "…the heart and soul of our country."

Listen, I'll talk smack about a cat, tackle 'em, tree 'em, and generally harass 'em, but I really don't want them all dead unlike this guy in Washington State. (Citizen Smash warns to click at your own risk and he's right.) Cats have their place--killing the mice and shrews and voles and moles I don't have time to bother with. (What? You think I'm gettin' my paws dirty digging for vermin? That "terra" business is highly overrated.) I'm not too sure the Demo-cats feel the same way about me and mine.

Canines are very society-oriented. We understand that alpha males (and alpha females) are necessary for an orderly society. Of course we do tend to beat the shit out of the other guy to get the upper paw, but hey--we're dogs for cryin' out loud! Still, we have pack laws we follow and a pecking order. Generally we respect our alpha without a lot of major pissing contests. (At least none that he can see, anyway.)

When you're in show business you're up against a lot of alphas. You get twenty of us terriers in a Group ring and you've almost got enough accumulated egos to equal one Michael Moore. Yet somehow we don't end up in a huge snarling, ripping mass in the center of the arena. Oh yeah, we hated each other's guts (especially that snotty dude owned by Dr. William Cosby) but we managed to respect each other's status in caninedom.

And if you didn't? Well, there was one obnoxious Cairn who thought he'd push his luck a couple of times. At Pebble Beach (CA) one year he carried on growling and yapping "Kill the Scottie" and "The Lakeland Lied" and "Impeach the Airedale." His human alpha just laughed and thought it was a great campaign tactic. The sucker got thrown out of the competition on his fat butt.

Demo-cats (and their alpha handlers) should get the same treatment.

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Meanwhile, Back at the ALGore (TN) Trailer Park…

Too much "cuteness" made the wolf crack.

"Couple's concrete pigs stolen; thieves demanding ransom

"Two concrete porkers, each about 1 foot tall, were taken from the Romineses' yard sometime between June 26 and the early morning hours of June 27, according to police records.

"The first ransom note demanded two ears of corn and one ripe mango, said police spokeswoman Kate Novitsky. Mary Romines found the ransom note tacked to the front gate of their home in A and L Trailer Park. Her husband, Bobby Romines, called police. The note requested that Mary Romines deliver the ransom at the front gate of the mobile home park. Mary Romines just wants the pigs returned unharmed, she said. [Emphasis mine]

"The pig statues were taken from her front yard, around a birdbath and beneath an arch surrounded by other cement swine brethren and chickens. The chickens were moved but not stolen.

Ya' know, I can sympathize with the swine swipers. There's a place up the street AHM calls the "Cute House." The only way to describe the place is that it looks like there was an explosion at a crafts fair and all the crap landed in one yard. If it's cute, country, crafty, and cloying they have it—and plunked it down somewhere on their lawn. It actually makes you wish for a return to pink plastic flamingos.

"One pig is presumably male, sporting blue overalls, while the other is presumably female, decked out in a pink dress.

Definitely a "cuteness" crisis. Last Easter the "Cute House" had a big fiberglass-painted-to-look-like-stone bunny pushing a child’s antique wheelbarrow full of plastic eggs with a row of baby bunnies following behind. Painted chicks and ducks and geese scurried through the flower beds and a mass of lilies (probably fake) was arranged around a large, plastic-flowered cross like I've marked in cemeteries. A tree was hung with multi-colored eggs in a bizarre echo of a Christmas tree, and small wreaths full of those barfing plastic eggs and bright pink bows were hung on every window.

All that was in addition to the usual stuff--folk art flags painted on pieces of old barn siding, folk art flowers painted on pieces of old barn siding, and folk art heart and duck shapes cut out of pieces of old barn siding. Then there's a miniature lighthouse with rotating light, a wooden highchair and a child's wagon both holding a pot of some flowers or other, and little garden flags flappin' butt high all over the place. (My butt, not AHM's. Get too close and you get a nasty flap burn.)

The only time I ever got near the front door was one Halloween when I took the pups trick-or-treating. They got totally spooked when they saw two hands sticking up from the top of a tree stump. Barked for a full thirty seconds until I figured out it was a fake-stone bird feeder on a small pedestal and shut them up. 'Course they were so embarrassed they had to almost drown the ceramic bunny-holding-a-watering-can beside the front stoop. Like AHM asked, how many mail-order catalogues had been sacrificed on this altar of "cuteness?"

Now you tell me… If you had to look at that mess of "cuteness" day in and day out, wouldn't you kidnap something?

"On Monday, the Romineses received a cooked pork chop with a note that said, ''cooked the pig.'' Tuesday night, the ''pignappers'' left the Romineses another letter, this time attached to a bag of pork rinds asking if she was scared. The letter demanded a potato, and the note was signed from ''the big bad wolf.''

Gotta' side with the wolf here--canines run together, doncha'know.

Dug up at Dave Barry's Blog.

MORE: Mr. Minority has an interesting take. (Now, if he'd just ditch the fe-lying…)

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The New Terrorists In America - Groundhogs!

As if I didn't have enough trouble keeping the fe-lyings and squirrels in line! Now the groundhogs have joined the terrorist network.

I'm not too sure I would have taken this sucker on, though. He was only after a couple of French poodles and (as you readers know) I still have unresolved issues after the Poodle Bitch incident at that dog show. But if I did, I guaran-damn-tee that groundhog would have been road kill. 'Course he wouldn't have even tried this crap with me around. I have street cred. I have a rep.

Man calls battle with groundhog 'Caddyshack' with Stephen King twist.

"LEWISTON [Maine] — A 240-pound military veteran stands ready to dispute the notion of the cute, cuddly image of the groundhog in the movie "Caddyshack." James Nelson fought off a rampaging groundhog in his back yard, but the critter kept coming back for more after being kicked and hit with a shovel. It finally scurried away after a police officer showed up with a gun.

"The thing was bionic," said Nelson, who was twice knocked to the ground. "It kept going like it was on a mission."

"The episode unfolded late Saturday morning when the furry animal the size of a large cat showed up behind Nelson's home and proceeded to attack his two poodles as his 10-year-old daughter and her friend shrieked from the swimming pool. Nelson came to the rescue and shooed the groundhog away, but the angry critter came back. This time it attacked Nelson, hissing and baring its teeth.

"Nelson gave the animal a kick and it ran away, but the groundhog came back and Nelson whacked it on the head with a shovel. "It was like a bull and matador thing," Nelson said. "I beat up myself trying to fight it off."

"Cleo Dow watched the ongoing battle from the neighbor's lawn. "He really wanted Jim," she said.
When police officer Trent Murphy arrived, the groundhog was hiding under Nelson's garage. It was there that the groundhog launched its final attack, going after both men.

"I said, 'Shoot it! Shoot it!' " Nelson said. Murphy pulled his gun and fired. It was unknown whether the single bullet found its mark, but the animal disappeared into the woods.

"Afterward, Nelson marveled at the tenacity of the animal, which he said was "as aggressive as aggressive can be." "I'm not much scared of anything," he said. "It was more of a Stephen King version of 'Caddyshack.' "

Yeah, and I'm Cujo!

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You Don't See Them Renting Cats, Do You?

Ha! Yet another example of the superiority and multi-national appeal of dogs.

"THE Beatles sang Money can't buy me love, but people are flocking to the "Puppy the World" rental pet shop at Tokyo's Odaiba waterfront park to rent just that by the hour.

"On a recent Sunday dozens of lonely hearts gazed at photos of adorable doggies and then shelled out 1575 yen ($20.99) to take the chihuahua, toy poodle or miniature dachshund of their choice for an hour's walk.

"Upon their return, many give their short-term companions a quick hug and a wave in a misty-eyed farewell.

"For Japanese with a fondness for animals but who are unable to raise pets because of their cramped homes or strict apartment rules, shops like these are a godsend.

"Three of us in our family love dogs, but my grandfather hates them," said a 12-year-old girl who lives with her parents and grandparents in a Tokyo condominium and who rents a dog every week."

I can personally vouch for the Japanese love of dogs. When I was a pup in CA, AHM would take us all walking in a nearby tourist town that was a prime stop on the tour bus route. (Tuesdays or Thursday were pretty much Far East days, depending upon whether the buses were headed north or south.)

Naturally when AHM visited the stores in town, we had to wait outside. There was plenty of shade and benches--and Japanese people with cameras. Now we all knew our job was to be ambassadors (and -esses) for the U.S., so of course we were polite and posed for pictures. We're used to posing for pictures. I mean, just look at that photo at the top of the page and tell me you wouldn't want to point a camera in our direction?

Even when AHM would duck into her favorite hole-in-the-wall, off-the-main-drag café for a quick lunch they'd find us. There we were, minding our own business and catching a few zzzz's on the shady bench in the corner, when suddenly there would be a burst of jabbering and a horde of tourists clogging the alleyway, cameras clicking.

I still wonder how many pictures of us are tucked away in vacation photo albums across Japan--right between Disneyland and Fisherman's Wharf.

Dug up at Dave Barry's Blog.

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