{"id":1906,"date":"2008-11-14T06:47:27","date_gmt":"2008-11-14T10:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2008-11-14T06:57:43","modified_gmt":"2008-11-14T10:57:43","slug":"the-internet-and-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/the-internet-and-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet and Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was working on the weekly whisky river<\/a>-driven rumination — which I’ll deliver a little later — when I came across something I just can’t keep to myself. Actually three<\/em> somethings. And *WARNING*WARNING*: these are spit-take funny.<\/p>\n

Most recently, and the item which led me to the other two, we have this<\/a>: an Open Letter to President-Elect Obama, re: Goldendoodles<\/strong>. Excerpt:<\/p>\n

I’m sure the first coupling of a Golden Retriever with a poodle was an accident, and likely the fault of the dogs themselves. Then, some idiot without a social conscience sold them by saying that the dog is similar to a Golden Retriever, only smarter.
\n…
\nA smarter Golden Retriever? This just means that you have a dog that is obsessive-compulsive about retrieving to the point where nothing else exists. Nothing. They don’t want affection, they want to chase a ball. Toby plays fetch while he’s eating — he has his own personal game of jacks where he drops his ball, grabs a mouthful of food, drops the food on the floor, and eats however many kibbles he can before the ball stops bouncing (For science, I once threw a ball while he was taking a dump… if you do acquire a Doodle I strongly advise against this).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A comment on that post led me to 2007’s I Has a Sweet Potato<\/a><\/strong>. This is simply an account of the author’s adventure at home while “Best Beloved,” the author’s S.O., is elsewhere. It is presented “in conversation form.” Excerpt:<\/p>\n

Dog:<\/strong> I am starving.
\nMe:<\/strong> Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And Best Beloved fed you extra food while I was gone.
\nDog:<\/strong> STARVING.
\nMe:<\/strong> I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving<\/em>.
\nDog:<\/strong> Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
\nMe:<\/strong> I am now ignoring you.
\nDog:<\/strong> STARVING.
\nDog:<\/strong> Did you hear me? I am starving<\/em>.
\nDog:<\/strong> Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine<\/em>.<\/p>\n[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]\n[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]<\/blockquote>\n

Finally, reaching way back to 1999, there is the classic Dogs in Elk<\/strong>. This has been reproduced at various locations around the Web, but according to the author<\/a>, originally<\/a> appeared on Salon. (She also affirms that yes, it is true.) However, I read it here<\/a>. It’s a transcript of a forum conversation; the subject is how to handle odd dog problems. Excerpt:<\/p>\n

Anne V – 01:01 pm PDT – Sep 9, 1999<\/strong> – Okay – I know how to take meat away from a dog. How do I take a dog away from meat? This is not, unfortunately, a joke.<\/p>\n

AmyC – 01:02 pm PDT – Sep 9, 1999<\/strong> – Um, can you give us a few more specifics here?<\/p>\n

Anne V – 01:12 pm PDT – Sep 9, 1999<\/strong> – They’re inside of it. They crawled inside, and now I have a giant incredibly heavy piece of carcass in my yard, with 2 dogs inside of it, and they are NOT getting bored of it and coming out. One of them is snoring. I have company arriving in three hours, and my current plan is to 1. put up a tent over said carcass and 2. hang thousands of fly strips inside it. This has been going on since about 6:40 this morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Have fun, but remember: swallow beverages first. No liability here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was working on the weekly whisky river-driven rumination — which I’ll deliver a little later — when I came across something I just can’t keep to myself. Actually three somethings. And *WARNING*WARNING*: these are spit-take funny. Most recently, and the item which led me to the other two, we have this: an Open Letter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[405,37,713],"tags":[442,714,715,716],"class_list":{"0":"post-1906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-nature","7":"category-onlineworld","8":"category-humor-writing_cat","9":"tag-dogs","10":"tag-goldendoodles","11":"tag-i-has-a-sweet-potato","12":"tag-dogs-in-elk","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-uK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}