Stupid Human Tricks

Well Maury was here recently and didn't do anything stupid which is some kind of record. Alpha Human Mom on the other hand…

Gotta' say it's not often we get to see AHM do stupid things--not since a couple of years ago when she dropped the air conditioner out the window, half-leaped after it, and hauled it back in by the power cord. Not the best view of AHM let me tell you! But the AC still works.

Most of ya' know AHM helps out people with dog sittin' which generally means we have lots of company like Maury and Miss Garbo. I'm okay with that--especially when that babe Garbo shows up--and it keeps things interestin' durin' the gardenin' season. And chasin' the Westie whimp Robbie around the yard gives my pups a change from chasin' fe-lyings. (Don't think his humans like him comin' home covered with grease from hidin' under the car all the time, but, hey, if you're gonna' be a wuss that's the price you pay.)

The other day, though, we went to Darwin's and Everton's house. We do that whenever their Alpha Human PB wants to spend a night or two with his special--ummm--friend. So the other night we strolled over to their place, sat around outside the garage/pen watchin' them eat (they hold the world food inhalin' record) then walked through the neighborhood to check out the Cute House. (More on that later, maybe.) When we got back to the (heated) garage, Darwin and Everton settled down on their beds, AHM checked the water, turned out the lights, and padlocked the door.

Pretty ordinary so far--until AHM was suddenly down at our level on her hands and knees, gropin' through the grass and leaves and mulch and most everythin' else you can think of--or not as the case may be. The pups thought it was a game and joined right in, stickin' their noses in all sorts of places--most of 'em where a human does not want a cold, wet, snotty dog nose stuck.

AHM started usin' words she musta' learned from a fe-lyin', pretendin' she was talkin' to us. (She does that a lot so people don't think she talks to herself. We pretend to understand.) We had just about figured out she'd mislaid PB's keyring when she sorta' got mislaid herself.

Ya' see, PB is a true English gardener with flowerbeds allllll over the place. Irregularly shaped, raised flowerbeds with waterin' troughs dug around the edges. Ya' don't run through his yard after dark since it's kinda' like chargin' across a WWI no man's land. Ya' don't crawl through his yard either, especially when it's dark and cold--and wet from rain.

There was a distinct splash and AHM hissin' more bad words--hissin' 'cause it was late and AHM isn't the sort to start yellin' obscenities at the top of her lungs no matter how much she wanted to. There were a bunch of sloppin', suckin' noises and then a Gawd-awful clangin'. Seems PB had stuck some decorative iron bells in that particular flowerbed. AHM got them all ringin'.

After a bunch more swearin' and squelchin', AHM finally decided to look through the garage window which led to some louder swearin'. There was just enough light from the corner street lamp to see the keyring lyin' on the workbench inside. Of course all the garage doors were locked. All the windows were locked too. No way in…

Except…

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…except for the doggie door inside the pen.

This show was gonna be better than anything on Letterman.

Everton and Darwin came out and for a couple of seconds we all just stood there starin' at each other and the black hole in the garage wall. AHM isn't a large person but that openin' looked pretty small, especially in the dark. Finally she started gropin' through the bags of leaves piled along the fence--PB's a big recycler and he collects bags of leaves from other people's trash piles. (And you thought only canines went dumpster divin'!)

The gate was at the farthest corner from the light and about this time Everton decided AHM was playin' a game. He would run along the fence, jump up and try to lick AHM's face while she was fightin' with the gate latches. Sometimes he'd get in a lucky shot and AHM would stagger around tryin' to stay on her feet after gettin' smacked by a 60+ pound lab. We were stuck with our leashes tied to the pottin' table so we couldn't see the whole show, but there were bags of leaves bouncin' and rollin' in all directions, and bongin' off the metal frame of the old swing set PB had turned into a flower arbor.

Every time AHM got the gate to budge, Everton would jump against it, slammin' it shut until it started to look like one of those chest-thumpin' celebrations football players have after one of 'em scores a touchdown. AHM finally got the timin' right, actually gettin' inside the pen, and inchin' her way along the fence to the doggie door.

The moment of truth. We were at the end of our leashes strain' to see. Darwin and Everton were lined up like an honor guard by the door. AHM was warnin' 'em both, in no uncertain terms, of the consequences of them tryin' anything funny. Then she charged into the breech. Okay, crawled into the breech. Head. Shoulders. Hips. Butt. She made it!

Darwin and Everton were close behind, bouncin' in celebration. Maybe a little too close. There were a couple of thumps and bangs, a clatter, a slosh, and the sound of AHM usin' more fe-lyin' words. Then she came out through the big garage door, drippin' wet, carryin' the giant sized water bowl. And the keys.

I think even Letterman would be impressed.

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Kibbles 'n Bits®

Republi-canine migrates from blue-state Washington to red-state Texas. Blue state owner says it's too much trouble to have the dog sent home. (Get a demo-cat ya' dumb broad!)

"A trucker found the 11-year-old mixed breed dog in Amarillo a week ago and brought her to a Denton veterinary hospital — 1,600 miles away from her Castle Rock, Wash. home.

"Gail Scott was shocked when the North Texas animal hospital called to say they'd found her dog, who was identified through an implanted microchip. "How did my dog get to Texas?" she recalls asking…

"Scott, who adopted Carla in 1998 from a Washington pound, has asked the animal hospital to put the dog up for adoption. She said it would be too hard to get Carla back to Washington because it's too cold for her to fly in the cargo area of a plane and too expensive to hire someone to drive her home.

"The Flower Mound Human Society is now caring for Carla and looking for a family to adopt her. At least one person has expressed interest."

And humans say we lick strange things…

"The Cleveland radio sidekick apparently missed that sage advice: Don't lick a bug-zapper. Dieter learned a harsh lesson Friday during a stunt on "Rover's Morning Glory" on "Xtreme Radio" (WXTM FM/92.3). He plugged in a dirty, back-porch hanging contraption and stuck his tongue on the wire grate."

Fe-lyin' s reveal alien mind meld terrorist plot.

"An Italian man who believes he's a cat had to be rescued by firemen when he got stuck up a tree. Shoppers spotted the man at the top of the tree mewing for help and called rescue services after he was still there more than an hour later.

"Attempts by local kids to coax him down with a saucer of milk failed, and as a result the 46-year-old cat-man had to be carried down a ladder by firemen. He was taken to hospital in Milan where he is undergoing psychiatric tests, news website Tgcom reported."

Tig cam?--oops no--Tgcom…

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"Good Dogs, Bad People and Cats"

Now there's a New York Times headline I like! [Login: ih8reges PW: thatsright]

"Do animals have moral values? It's a tough question. We can't rely on exit polls. As everyone knows, it's impossible to get a straight answer from a cat.

It's impossible to get any kind of answer. They're all too busy pretendin' they're gods or somethin'.

"The question comes to mind because of a report in the Nov. 25 issue of Nature by Karthik Panchanathan and Dr. Robert Boyd of the University of California, Los Angeles. The researchers did a mathematical analysis of how cooperation and punishment might make evolutionary sense.

"…it's hard to see how cooperation would evolve without punishment. Why not be a slugabed, or free rider, as the researchers term it, and live off the cooperative people? The analysis showed that one punishment, refusing to help free riders, turns out to be a method that makes survival sense."

Hmmmm… Speakin' of "free riders"…

"Fair enough. But in something of an offhand comment, quoted in a U.C.L.A. news release, Mr. Panchanathan said, "If you put two dogs together, and one dog does something inappropriate, the other dog doesn't care, so long as it doesn't get hurt." He added, "It certainly wouldn't react with moralist outrage. Likewise, it would not experience elation if it saw one dog help out another dog. But humans are very different."

What does he know. My dad was big on keepin' the pack in line and he definitely cared. One of my half-sisters had turned into quite a little street-walker which irritated the hell out of us. (She was a real head case--we decided it was 'cause she hung around with Silly Human Female too much.) Half-sis would climb the four foot high picket fence. Yep--the picket fence--the kind with pointy tops. Makes me cringe just thinkin' about it. Then she'd go shashayin' around town, wigglin' her butt at every stray hangin' on the streetcorner, while the rest of us ran around like fools tryin' to find her.

Dad was definitely morally outraged about the whole thing, and decided to put a stop to her behavior. Every time she headed for the fence and started to climb, he would rush off to find AHM and raise such a ruckus she'd come outside in time to catch sis in the act.

"…If dogs have a sense of right and wrong, then they could do wrong. Right? They may not be capable of carrying guilt around for years and years and years, but they do recognize certain rules about how to act in a social group, and that is sort of a moral value."

I've talked about social group/moral values business already. Now, I'm not too sure about carryin' around guilt for years and years, but we sure as hell know when we've screwed up and try not to repeat that mistake. And we remember for years and years not to repeat that mistake!

Go watch a major dog show some day--especially the Best in Show competition. There we are, all millin' around muzzle to muzzle, and (mostly) never fightin'! And if a Borzoi wins BOS at Westminster, you don't see every Borzoi in town riotin' and burnin' their kennels in celebration, do you? So already our moral values are better than your average sports fan's. Not to mention a fe-lyin's. Go visit a major fe-lyin' beauty contest and you'll see they have to keep those suckers in cages 'cause they just can't get along!

"In fact, if moral values and moral outrage are results of evolution, in human beings they may have reached the level of being counterproductive, like the vast antlers that supposedly doomed the Irish elk."

Yeah. Humans spend waaaayyy to much time worryin' about whether or not their feelin's have been hurt. Geeze! If they had to put up with the crap we canines have to deal with they'd be blithering fools. Oh. Wait…

"Dogs could presumably evolve into the same morass. It is, however, reserved for social animals, as Dr. [Frans] de Waal [author of "Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals,"] points out. Animals that evolved as solitary predators feel no moral bonds or restrictions on their behavior."

Not too sure about that "moral bonds" business. I gotta' admit, if a hot babe in heat wanders past it's every canine for himself. And the bitch is no great paragon of moral virture either! But aside from that we generally respect everyone in the pack--unlike those spoiled brat "only dogs" we sometimes meet up with. (Are ya' listenin' Maury?)

"Cats, in other words, are safe. They have no morals, which is one of the reasons so many people love them."

Which just proves my point that dogs are Republi-canines and fe-lyin's are Demo-cats!

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Why We Fight

They start 'em young…

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The Omega Human Threat

Wow! Finally a Homespun Bloggers question I can answer! Sort of…

"What, in your mind, represents the single greatest long-term threat to the United States of America, and what should be done about it?"

Okay. I think our greatest long-term threat are all those
Schrodiner Demo-cats. Ya' know who I'm talkin' about--those Blue State people who think the Red Staters are livin' in some alternate universe and they're the only "reality based community." (AHM and me are makin' a list--checkin' it twice--and thinkin' about puttin' that list of 'em in the sidebar just so we can keep track.)

Now these Omega humans wanna' spend the next four (eight? twelve?) years changin' the "moral argument" into free food, drugs, and sex (rock 'n roll optional) for all, until the whole country's a pack of limp-pawed utopians with everyone lazin' around like fat fe-lyings who've od-ed on catnip.

Dangerous stuff. We gotta' make sure that change never happens! It'll be tough diggin', though, 'cause there'll be lots of fe-lyings hissin' and spittin' in our faces: [Login: be82096@coolgoose.com PW: 2003md]

"A voice-mail message left last week at the Virginia office of Laptoplobbyist.com, a conservative Internet site, went like this:

"Hi, my name is Rachel, and my telephone number is... I wanted to tell you that you're evil, horrible people. You're awful people. You represent horrible ideas. God hates you and he wants to kill your children. You should all burn in hell. Bye."

"Rachel is Rachel Buchman, 25, a regular reader of Laptoplobbyist's e-mail newsletter - and a reporter with public radio station WHYY-FM (90.9) for about three years. And she left her office number at WHYY in the message last Tuesday."

That's no old hippie sayin' that stuff. That's some blue-state media babe pup gettin' paid with our tax dollars. (Actually AHM's tax dollars, but ya' get the idea.)

Used to be ya' had to do some sorta' work to get your LiverSnaps®, and that work was important even if it was only sweepin' streets. Now these kitty-litter clumps are tryin' to change our "morals," sayin' workers are greedy sinners and it's their moral obligation to make sure all those sainted lazy slackers are rollin' in free Fancy Feast®.

I know ya'll might not think it, but I know somethin' about sin and what that guy Jesus said about people bein' poor. AHM has her friends over sometimes to talk about the Bible and natually we all listen. The other day they were talkin' about this moral business of free money for poor people and readin' the story about how some lady poured expensive oil over Jesus' feet. 'Course someone (maybe a bunch) in his circle of friends had to complain about it, sayin' it was a waste and the money should be spent buyin' food and stuff for the poor. [John 12:3-8]

Well, this Jesus told 'em to back off and stop fussin' 'cause the poor were always gonna' be around but he wasn't. What makes the whole story interestin' is who that Bible writer said did the most complainin'--Judas--the guy getting' pay-offs from the religious bigwigs to turn in Jesus.

Doesn't that just figure. The guy tryin' to make givin' money to the poor a "moral imperative" was the same guy takin' bribes.

Some of you human types never change.

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