Doggy Dhimmitude III

Police in Britain must now put booties on sniffer dogs while searching Muslim homes to prevent giving "offence".

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of 7/7. I bring this up because the police seem to have forgotten this little incident.

Aqua Paws Platinum Underwater Treadmill

An underwater treadmill for dogs; are some people complete and total nutters?

Carl the Cattle Dog would never get out from under the bed again.

SunSpa

Having never seen a tanned dog (tan, yes, but not tanned), I suspect that this is another idea that hasn't been quite thought through.

Pet's Eye View Camera

Clip this automatic camera to your dog's collar and you'll finally have an answer to the question, "Good Lord, what the Hell have you been rolling in?"

Meet Little Ann

And now, I'd like to present the latest addition to the Szondy family: Little Ann, whom we've adopted as a playmate for Carl the Cattle Dog.

I'd forgotten the joys of looking after a puppy; so much energy, so much carpet cleaner.

No. 6, Call Your Service

"I am the new Number 2... And I've got to go number 1."

Remote Pet Feeder

Feed your pet over the Internet!

If you think this is a good idea, it's time to trade in your dog for a potted plant.

Robot Vs. Puppy

I didn't know Sarah Connor had a dog.

Dog Washer & the Disappearing Carl

If you're in Poitiers, France and have $30,000 going spare, you can pick up this automatic doggie washing machine that will have your pup squeaky clean in no time.

The odds against this one showing up at Chez Szondy are precisely zero. I have enough trouble getting Carl the Cattle Dog out from under the bed at bath time as it is. Faced with this thing, I doubt if we'd ever see anything beyond the tip of his tail again.

Dog Shoots Man

A dog in Iowa claims to have shot his master "by accident".

Yeah, we've heard that one before.

Squirrel for Breakfast

I was woken up this morning at about 6:30 by the wife asking me to "come and see what your dog did."

Whenever she calls Carl the Cattle Dog "my" dog it invariably means something unpleasant. Sure enough, as I stumbled blearily into the kitchen there was Carl sitting happy as a lark, wagging his tail and showing off the dead squirrel he'd brought in. It was not only dead, but rigid and dirty, which indicates that Carl had caught the little bugger the night before and had buried it until a more convenient time to show it off-- which turned out to be the crack of dawn. Thank God my wife intercepted him or he'd have plopped it on my pillow and I have no desire to go through a cheap remake of The Godfather.

If life keeps going on like this, I have GOT to get a Teasmade.

Green Logic

Going for a walk will destroy the world. Therefore, going for a walk with your dog will take out the Earth and several neighbouring planets.

QED.

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women

We're babysitting both our neighbour's pooches this week-- One of whom is a silky terrier mix who wrestles with Carl the Cattle Dog 24/7 and the other is a golden lab who is bottomless pit of need for attention, so you can imagine what life is like at Chez Szondy at the moment. Having one dog is relaxing. Having two dogs is stimulating. Having three dogs is pandemonium. Besides this, I'm also getting my daughter ready to start Kindergarten next week and I have an important meeting with a potential client this afternoon.

In a nutshell, this means that posting may be a tad light today, so I'm filling the gap with that Roger Corman epic, Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.

The cheesy goodness just oozes out.

Old Joke, New Twist

My dog has two noses.

How does he smell?

...

More Money Than Sense

Does your dog hate being left out of the trendy, and incredibly expense, oxygen therapy fad? Do you have a fat bank account and all the common sense of a retarded Belgian hamster? Then get out the plastic, ring up the AirPress company and order the O2 Dog oxygen therapy system.

And don't be put off by thoughts of canine claustrophobia or the fact that O2 Dog looks suspiciously like AirPress's Dog-in-a-Can, Pickle-a-Poodle, and Terrier Time Capsule.

Doggie Door Days

Last night was DIY time at Chez Szondy as I installed a doggie door for Carl the Cattle Dog.

Ever since we installed the invisible fence he's had the run of the grounds, but it's an axiom of modern technology that when you install one device it's merely the prelude to a string of upgrades to the rest of the system. Carl may be able to run as he pleases when someone is home,but he still has to be locked in the house when we were away and we've quickly learned that while it's great to be able to have the doors wide open on warm, sunny days it's a bit of a pain having to leave the front door ajar on cold, rainy days so that Carl can get in. So, it was pretty obvious pretty quickly that we'd have to provide him with his own private entrance. It was also obvious that things wouldn't go as smoothly as the manual makes it look.

The first hurdle came when the door arrived on our doorstep (ironic, that). Since we live in the country where many of the neighbours' dogs roam free and all sorts of interesting wildlife from raccoons to coyotes to bears hang out, the old rubber flap over the hole job wasn't going to be an option. Instead, we plunked for a high-tech version with automatic locks and an infrared key so that only Carl would be allowed in or out.

First thing I did was to install the battery in the key that clips to Carl's collar. Of course, the picture in the manual shows the key hanging upside down in the picture, so I installed the battery in the key while it was rightside up-- and the battery was thus upside down. Five minutes later I was commenting to my wife that the thing was getting hot as a pistol and I burned my thumb taking it apart again.

Not sure whether or not I'd burned out the key, I then turned my attention to the door. Having carefully read the manual, I stole some batteries from an old label printer and installed them in the door. A light blinked on. Nothing happened. I reinstalled the batteries. Nothing happened. I waved the key in front of it. Nothing happened.

A night of fretting over whether I'd be stuck for return shipping costs later, I bought a fresh batch of batteries and tried again. This time the light came on, the door bleeped and it responded to the key as advertised. One for the home team.

Now it was time to install the door.

I marked out the dimensions on the back door, fetched my trusty cordless drill, inserted the bit... And discovered that I hadn't charged the battery all winter. So, it was plug it in, wait a half hour, drill a hole, plug it in, wait a half hour, drill a hole and so on.

Then it was sabre saw time. With confidence I cut a massive plug out of the woodwork, admired the tidy hole for a moment and inserted the door. Or tried to, anyway. The hole was a fraction too small. Ever try shaving particle board with a sabre saw? Ever try doing it while a four-year old is offering to "help?" It is not a pretty sight.

Door finally in, screw holes drilled, screw holes not aligning, holes redrilled, face plate wrestled into position, screws pounded in with mallet and the whole thing bolted together later, I put the key on Carl's collar and let him try out his new door.

Only to discover that the saw and drill had scared the living daylights out of him and that the clunking sound of the locking bolts sliding back were the final straw that sent him under the bed again. In the growing twilight, I pounded my head on the door jamb in celebration of a job well done.

Naturally, it was at this point that my wife asked me to read over a complicated legal document the size of a telephone directory that needed signing.

But that's another story.

Confuse-a-Canine

An automatic dog food dish that not only dispenses the kibble, but announces that dinner is served in your pre-recorded voice.

Carl the Cattle Dog will never come out from under the bed again.

Dog Days

Light entries this weekend as I'm installing one of those invisible dog fence things, which turns out to be a bit more complicated than it sounds.

Here's a helpful tip: When you've got the perimeter wire installed and you're adjusting the settings on the control box, it is not a good idea to be holding the receiver collar with the electrical contacts face down in the palm of your other hand.

Bowser 2179! Yes, You!

Own a doggie? Is your pooch a bit plump? Then you'd better put him on a diet right quick or you'll be facing a fine of up to £20,000 or 51 weeks imprisonment.

The Ministry has yet to decide on compulsory morning calisthenics for dogs in front of the telescreen.

Ingsoc for Dogs

Live in Camden? Own five dogs? Need to take them walkies?

That will be an £80 fine on the spot, thank you.

Doggie Bubbles

The Gazillion bubble company breaks into the canine market with it's Fetch-a-Bubble machine that shoots thousands of chicken-flavoured bubbles, which the manufacturer claims drives dogs "crazy."

Perhaps or perhaps not, but at the very least it will confuse the heck out of them.

A Pint for Me and One for My Friend.

A pet shop owner in the Netherlands has invented a beer for dogs.

He's a bit late. Down the pub we've had that for years. We call it "beer."

Follow the Signs

I have got to learn to follow my instincts.

I had to go into town on business yesterday and after picking up my daughter from school in the afternoon I decided to take Carl the Cattle Dog to the dog park to make up for his having to spend all day in the kitchen. Something told me that this was a bad idea, but I put that down to being tired and the sky being overcast, so I changed into my boots, bundled daughter and dog into the Cruiser and drove into Redmond.

Now, King County is a bit odd when it comes to parks and some bizarre subterranean logic told the bureaucrats that be that having paid parking in Marymoor Park was a jolly good idea-- especially when such parking is jammed solidly in the 20th century with parking machines that only take hard cash rather than debit cards. I only bring this up because I had to get out of the car in order to use the machine (another bit of mind-boggling design) and left the engine running.

No problem, I thought. I was only going to be out a second and it wasn't like carjackers were going to leap out of the turf. I got the ticket, turned back to the car and saw Carl sitting in the drivers seat with his nose on the door lock button. Yes, nothing like progress. In the old days, you had to lock each door individually. Now, a dog with no formal training is able to lock the car all by himself-- still running and with the keys in the ignition.

I suspected that Carl would be no help in this situation, so I then spent what seemed like an epoch explaining, very loudly, to my four-year old daughter through the window how to undo her belt, climb into the front seat, and unlock the door, which she eventually did.

Of course, I abandoned the outing as a bad idea. Did I? Did I, Hell. I'd spent an entire dollar on parking and I wasn't about to let that go to waste, so into the dog park we went.

Last time I'd been to the park it had been one expanse of ice and snow packed down by dogs of various sizes and breeds. Even the black, swampy bit was frozen solid, much to Carl's dismay, as he'd been looking forward to a good muddying. Now the thaw had taken firm hold in the lower altitudes and most of the snow and ice was gone. Most, but not all. We discovered this when my daughter walked through a puddle and slid on a camouflaged slab of ice. out went her feet from under her and she landed flat on her back in what was to her scale a fair-sized wading pond, albeit a very, very cold one.

So, five minutes after the start of our outing we were back in the car, Emma stripped down and under a blanket, daddy sweltering in his winter gear with car heater turned up full and Carl feeling confused and relieved that at least he'd had a chance to poop.

Next time I think I'll settle for throwing the Frisbee around the garden.