Wolves, Dogs, Cats, & Bats
“I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.” – Author Unknown

An interesting tidbit from the ‘Police Blotter’ of the Southwest Community Connection (our neighborly news rag):

Jan 14. 9:30 a.m.: A caller reported seeing a large wolf in Gabriel Park, eating a cat. Police arrived within a few minutes but the animal had already left. Park employees said that they have seen no wolves in Gabriel Park.

Now, if you replace wolf with dog and substitute cat for squirrel, then the story is quite believable. Gabriel Park has a large off-leash area and is a haven for dogs and the humans they own. In the words of the legendary Ted Nugget, ‘It’s a free for all’. From my epic Wimbledon-type tennis matches last week in Gabriel Park, I observed this chaos first hand. Basically, it seems, every dog owner believes that their canine is: a) gods gift to its breed, b) a blue ribbon winner for obedience and discipline and lastly, c) not really an animal at all but rather a being that can be reasoned with and can understand the logic of the english language perfectly. It is this arrogance that seems to be the cause of most of the chaos at the dog park. Having the fenced in tennis courts so close to the dog park doesn’t help matters either. You can tell the truly smart dogs from the dumber ones by counting how many times they run at full sprint into the chain link fence attempting to retrieve an arrant tennis ball.

Also, and I don’t mean to bash on dogs and their owners…but…what’s the deal with dog owners bringing their dog(s) to the pet store? I mean I know you can, and the pet stores encourage it, but why? It seems like a huge production. And I don’t appreciate having to defend myself with five pound buckets of Kitty Litter every time another dog decides to charge down aisle six. I don’t know, maybe I give off some kind of dog pheromone but I’m getting sick and tired of hearing the phrase, “Sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into him, he usually doesn’t act like this”. I usually hear this statement when I have my back pressed up against the fish aquariums and I’m trying to make the dog go away by shaking a cat dancer in its face.

In other news…the amount of minutes I’ve spent watching the Olympics so far equals exactly zero. And it’s these smarmy human interest stories like, Dawson goes from abandoned baby to Olympic hero that will continue to keep that number very low.

Also, when the entire American Armed Forces fails to find and bring to justice Osama Bin Laden, who can we turn to? Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Batman. Now I’m a huge fan of Frank Miller’s Batman series, but if some folks are troubled by some lame ill-conceived Dutch cartoons, I’m guessing they ain’t going to take too kindly when this whole Batman thing drops. Do you suppose they will try and burn the Bat-signal?