Dogs – PopWars

March 18, 2012August 18, 2019

Special People

Horseshoes being painted for the beginning of the season

Instead of staying in the woods we’ve been heading into the park proper in hopes of finding yet another early flowering specimen. The apricot trees still rule but the magnolias are coming on. Warm weather obviously brings out a lot of people, two kinds of people, outdoors enthusiasts and dog people. Any walker can tell you dog people always say, “Don’t worry. He/she is harmless” when their dog comes at you or jumps up on your leg. The “Dogs must be on leash” signs at the park entrances only apply to suckers because no one is here to enforce the rules.

We have a few dog maulings under our belts so we’ve had plenty of time to think up novel ways to combat this problem. Peggi would like to buy mace spray but not just the kind the mailman has. She would like something to spray at the dog owners because it is not the dogs fault. We both like dogs especially that cute little thing in “The Artist.” I’ve been thinking about making a t-shirt to wear in the park when we walk that reads. “The Dog Leash Law Does Not Apply To Me.”

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September 28, 2009August 23, 2019

Bite My Ass

Poor man's survey transit — Poor man’s survey transit

Our neighbor on one side is digging a drainage ditch for the rain run off that rolls down our street. He call’s this set up his poor man’s transit. With the aid of the level he sited the posts that describe the outside perimeter of the pond and plans to grade the basin and build up a berm on the downhill side.

Our neighbor on the other side has a “Senior for Seniors” dog that he got from Lollipop Farm. The dog is twelve years old and who knows what kind of a past it has had. We were walking across his yard the other day, talking and not really paying attention, when the dog darted at us from rear. It grabbed a hold of my rear end and had it’s mouth opened too wide to really chomp down. I could hardly shake it loose and when I did it ripped my Tommy Hilfiker sweat shirt with its teeth. The shirt is a hand me down from Peggi’s father and only has sentimental value at this point. When I got home I found teeth marks in my ass.

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July 2, 2009August 24, 2019

Yap, Yap, Yap

You’re A Bad Dog Whimsy

We walked through the woods today and came across four different parties of deer. The skies were pure blue and the snow was disappearing under our feet. When we got to the park we decided to walk up Log Cabin Road to the Wisner. We were asking for trouble here because dog people drive to this intersection and then let their dogs run free (i.e. take a dump on the road).

As we walked we watched an oversize woman bend over and call her dog from her over sized husband in a US Army sweatshirt. He had just let the big black dog off its leash. The dog came right at us and the women chided the dog with, “Well I guess you would rather go home with them than us.” A little further up the the road we ran into Whimsey, a Golden Retriever, who walked in circles around us while sniffing our bodies. With raising her voice or applying an inflection, the woman said, “You’re a bad dog Whimsy. You’re a bad dog Whimsy.”

About ten years ago I made the mistake of putting the back of my hand out for a stray dog to sniff. It grabbed my hand and and mangled it. I spent the afternoon in Emergency getting injections of Human Globulin directly into the wounds and then stitches. And there was a month of rabies shots at regular intervals. I couldn’t play drums for weeks. Dogs aren’t all that cute any more. Except for little white, wiry things and Dachshunds and Basset Hounds and our neighbor’s dogs. And that one that bit me.

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March 12, 2008August 29, 2019

Beware Of The Dog

We scanned some film for a 4D Advertising job a while back and I threw a couple of our own slides in the batch. This is a pretty wild shot of Peggi’s mom and her dog, Sybil. I used to love getting that little dog wound up.

Peggi and I set up a DVD player for my parents last night so they can watch movies on their new TV. My father was telling us how their neighbor, who just moved to San Francisco to “get well”, told them that they were the best thing that ever happened to him. This guy lived alone and wore paths in the carpet with his obsessive compulsive pacing. They are repairing the floors now and the house is up for sale. My mother is already worried that the next neighbor may have a dog. They live near the park in Brighton and have been chased out of there by dogs. And my mother was out front last summer, talking to a neighbor, when a teenage dog-sitter walked by with a Rottweiler on a leash. The Rottweiler broke free and and made a beeline for another neighbor’s small dog. My mom and her friend watched in horror as the Rottweiler killed the other dog.

The FedEx guy was out in front of our house today with a package of work from Lowel when he called us to ask if it was safe to get out of his truck. We told him that the “Beware of Dog” sign came with the house.