Some Pup Owners Belong in the Doghouse

Our town is going to the dogs, and you know who is responsible?

Not the developers. They’re leveling historic slums to build luxury slums of the future.

Not the folks in charge of our neglected local infrastructure. They’ve been letting the mold grow in our schools because … well, something has to hold the crumbling bricks together.

It’s the dog owners. You rotten, self-righteous lovers of furry beasts that retrieve old tennis balls, you.

Dogs Beat Kids Paws Down

As a father of two and master of none, the rugrat-less of society occasionally seek my advice on how to best prepare for parenthood. My answer is always the same:

Stay on birth control until you have raised a dog.

Dogs, regardless of age, are essentially furry children with tongues made for licking instead of sassing.

Like human babies, dogs require you to drastically alter your lifestyle to meet their every need. For both species, those needs generally revolve around eating and the inevitable body functions resulting thereafter.

Gerber versus Kibble `n' Bits, buying Pampers versus renting a Rug Doctor; poe-tay-toe, puh-tah-toe.

Regardless of species, you must also attend to either's education. I don't care how easy those "Hooked on Fetch-onics" or "Puppy Einstein" videos make it look, it takes considerable time and patience to teach a dog essential life skills such as, well, when and where to go potty. Then come the important moral lessons about right (chew on this squeaky toy!) and wrong (don't chew my CD collection -- NOOOOO, not my Michael Buble!!!).

Even if you have a doctorate in teaching, you will still want to puppy-proof your home. This includes moving chemicals to a place out of reach, gating staircases and -- most importantly -- storing your dirty laundry in a locked closet. The last is for your protection, not your pup's. You seriously don't want Fido prancing around in front of company wearing a bandana fashioned from a pair of your least attractive tighty-whities.

Trust me.

Puppy-rearing sound like an expressway to a stomach ulcer? At times, yes, but here's the catch. While some children may never stop giving you agita (hi, Mom!), many dogs do.

With good guidance, lots of love and daily exercise (because a tired puppy is a good puppy, as a professional trainer once told me), dogs go through their wild and crazy stage in a fraction of the time real children do. In addition, canines seem much better at realizing the advantage of being good to those who bring them treats and scratch them behind the ears. Having been a teenager once and having one child ensconced in tweenhood, I can vouch that we humans aren't quite that quick on the draw.

I'm not saying post-puppyhood is a cakewalk. For example, our family has raised two Labrador retrievers over the years. While these vacuum cleaners of the canine world are great for mopping up floors or pre-rinsing plates after mealtime, for their health you never want to give them access to an uncovered garbage can or a park carpeted with Canada goose poop. For your sake, you also never want them to lick you after either experience.

Finally, researchers have found that having a dog -- unlike having teenagers -- appears to offer owners health benefits. These include lower blood pressure, improved cholesterol and triglycerides levels, decreased risk of developing heart disease or other cardiovascular problems, and a better ability to cope with stress. Some of these come from the strong bond and unconditional love that develops between owner and dog; others are a result of you assisting Rover with his regular exercise through walking, running or playing "come back here with that, you mangy mutt!"

The bottom line: Science shows owning a dog contributes to your continued enjoyment of beer and cheese.

Let's see your kid do that for you.

* * *

I wanted to end this by embedding the video for “Bitch School” by Spinal Tap, but UMG prevents doing that. Instead click the song title for the short version or the band name for the long version.

Chickens

While I’m knocking back mojitos and Carl Hiaasen novels in Blogger Rehab this week, a few friends will stopping by to keep you entertained.

Today welcome The Holmes, a colleague from DadCentric and one of my true favorites in the blogosphere. He has illustrated chats with his testicles about his vasectomy, even stranger human encounters when he has to provide a follow up sperm sample and, as you shall read, a chicken fetish that would make Gonzo from The Muppet Show blush.

* * *

“Those two are Spanish, that one is British, that one is American, and those three, I think, are Australian.”

I listened a little closer, but I couldn’t detect any accents.

“Like, that’s where they all came from?” I asked.

“Like, that’s where they’re all descended from. I’m pretty sure they all came from here.”

“Ah, so that’s why all their clucks sound the same.”

My wife had just run through the breeds of the chickens that we keep housed in our backyard, including their names, national origins, and some interesting factoids. Like how some of them will lay blue or pink eggs, hence the name Easter Eggers. We cooked up a blue egg for our 4-year-old and he got pissed that only the shell was blue. He looked at us like he’d been tricked.

My wife knows a lot more about all this chicken stuff than I do. She should. I’m just the insanely handsome muscle. This whole chicken-and-egg project was her idea. Which came first? Who gives a flying cluck, they’re both plenty tasty if prepared properly.

Ever grilled something dead while the live version of it was clucking around at your feet? That’s a weird feeling.

Does anyone remember that cartoon Chicken Boo? It was one of the features on Animaniacs. It portrayed this human-size chicken that people kept mistaking for a real person in spite of the fact that the only sounds to come out of his beak were clucks and ba-goks.

Anyone remember this? Anyone?

My wife doesn’t believe me that this show ever actually existed. I sing the theme song at her and she just looks at me like I laid an egg:

“You wear a disguise to look like human guys, but you’re not a man, you’re a chicken, Boo.”

Dude, I couldn’t have made that up! Look, here’s a picture even:

Every episode ended the same. The people would realize, “Hey, he’s a CHICKEN!!!” and then run him out of town, as if to drive away their own shame at having been so foolish as to place their faith in an oversized rooster.

We don’t live on a farm or anything. This is chicken husbandry of the urban variety. Step out our back door, and right there off of the end of our deck is a real live honest-to-hen chicken coop. The enclosed house portion stands eight feet tall, is painted bright green, and is topped with a slanted metal roof that I imagine sounds plenty hellacious when it rains. Chickens are sound sleepers, my wife tells me. Good for them.

Off of the house there’s an eight-foot-long by four-foot-high run enclosed in hardware cloth in which our seven lovely ladies spend much of their days. They get to come out and wander free when we’re home to keep an eye on things, but when we’re not around, they stay on lock down so that they don’t get eaten by neighborhood cats, so that they don’t eat stuff in our garden, and so that they don’t wander off and get mistaken for real people and cause all manner of confusion.

Because they could, you know?

Aside from being sources of fresh eggs and free entertainment, these chickens that we’ve taken under our wings are in possession of full-blown personalities. They’ve got swagger. Attitude. Sass. In fact, as they’ve grown out of their chickhood into full-fledged chickens, the ladies have become much sassier toward us, their human protectors.

For example, time was, herding them back into their coop was as simple as walking up behind them and just keeping on walking in the direction you wanted them to go. These days, they scatter in five, six, seven different directions. You get one in the coop only to have it come right back out again. Every other cluck sounds like a “f**k you, buddy.” They’re like children in that way, except they pop out an egg every so often. Children only pop out non-edible items.

So the image of a chicken sashaying about in say, some designer silks wrapped around its neck like some sort of anti-chopping block talisman, maybe a jaunty little hat over its comb, yes, it all seems rather plausible. True, their vocabulary is limited, but since when do we let limited vocabulary act as a barrier to becoming a full-fledged human being?

And we didn’t go to all the trouble of raising these chickens only to have them escape, cause a commotion, and then get run out of town. I don’t care where these chickens came from. We want our free eggs, dammit.

* * *

Don’t forget to vote today and every day through the end of the month to help Cure JM win a $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. We need to be No. 1 or No. 2 by Sept. 1 to win the grant. If you can, also vote for these other great kids’ causes we are supporting.

Ugh, Wilderness!

Twice a year, my wife and I break the seal on our hermetically suburbanized lives to go camping. Since we are as rugged as a cardboard box in a hurricane, we load the Things into the minivan and drive all of five minutes from our climate-controlled, Cat-5 wired, high-def ready house to pitch a tent overnight at the local nature center.

We attended our first of these biannual Family Camp Outs (that’s the name -- honest) two years ago. The parents of one of the friends of Thing 2, our own nature boy, convinced us it was the perfect way to get back to nature without the inconvenience of actual wilderness, such as stowing provisions so as not to attract killer rabbits or playing Russian roulette by grabbing for leaves in the dark when one has to ... you know. For the most part, they were right.

You set up camp just feet from the asphalt parking lot next to the center's "meadow," a field of wood chips generally not favored by the bowel-challenged Canada geese that swim in the adjacent pond. The center's staff grills up burgers and hot dogs for dinner and flips pancakes for breakfast for you right there in the meadow. Come sunset, they build a bonfire and provide all the trimmings for s'mores.

Most importantly, they keep all the center's bathrooms unlocked and stocked with TP.

Essentially, all you need for this adventure is a tent and a flashlight.

"This is like `Camping for Dummies,'" My Love initially observed. She had done the real thing during her relatively hardscrabble Midwestern childhood, but these days she prefers an intimate relationship with her new iPhone and The Wall Street Journal Wine Club delivering six types of cabernet to our front door every other month.

So, we be dummies.

At our first Family Camp Out, a rumbling shook the ground at 5 in the morning. A vicious rain followed, which we could have handled if it wasn't for the accompanying lightning and the sudden realization that we had situated our tent right next to a flagpole. This resulted in a chaotic scramble to get into the minivan alive, followed by a quick drive home, where I ended up making pancakes for us and the family that had conveniently talked us into the outing in the first place.

At the next campout, it rained before and during our arrival. Such perilous conditions moved the event indoors, with us pitching our Sir Edmund Hillary-endorsed tent on the carpeted upper floor of the center's main building, a 19th century mansion turned into a museum and art hall.

However, nature's terror followed us upstairs. The room we slept in had -- only TWO hours before -- been the site of a campout animal lecture during which a black rat snake tried to escape behind a radiator and a large box turtle, while being held in midair, relieved itself on the floor to the delight of dozens of children. So chances are, at some point, I stepped in turtle urine.

This past weekend, though, we came prepared. To avoid lightning strikes, we set up our tent away from the flagpole and in the grass by the center's Otter Pond. To counter the heat and humidity, we hung a battery-operated fan over our air mattresses.

If only we had invested in napalm-grade insect repellant.

Our family of four gave up counting the bites we received from no-see-ums when we reached 100.

Yet the subsequent scratching still has not soothed our itch to camp. Come Monday, I'll be putting in my reservation for the next Family Camp Out, scheduled for October.

I hope to see you there. I'll be the guy in the non-conductive rubber suit with sleeves that tie in the back.

Bear with Me

Two weeks back, some friends and I took a golf weekend in the hills of northern New Jersey.

I played my three best rounds of the entire year and was the big winner, collecting $2.25 from my friends in our friendly waging.

I lost only 10 golf balls and never my temper.

The beverage cart managed to find me every four or five holes. Mmm, frosty Yuengling on the links.

And not only did I make this putt ...

... but also the 300-pound black bear crossing the fairway behind me didn't eat my sorry, saddle-shoed ass.

Scenes from a Generally Good Day

The dog licks my face when the alarm beeeep-beeeep-beeeeps at 6 a.m. He then proceeds to step on my manhood like so many others before him. Et tu, puppy?

This prevents my normal routine of rolling back over and sleeping for another hour. Instead, I get up, fire up the laptop and knock off a third of my freelance work for the day before either me or the coffee turns bitter and cold.

* * *

Attending Thing 2's first "publishing party," in which he read the "How To" stories he wrote in class.

He wrote three -- "How to Draw a House," "How to Make a Macaroni Necklace" and "How to Read a Book" -- the most of anyone in his class.

Note to self: Given the recent chimp attack in town, writing may be a good alternative to his monkey training aspirations.

Second note to self: Start assessing female classmates for potential ambitious, corporate executive wife-types.

* * *

On our walk through the neighborhood, Murphy starts digging through a rotting pile of leaves by the curb. He starts to crunch a large black object between his teeth.

"Droooooop it," I say.

He does. To the asphalt falls a garage door opener.

And … it's not mine.

On the stroll home, it fails to open any of my neighbor's garages.

* * *

I finish tweaking the layout of my blog, actually re-writing some of the HTML coding on my own, without causing it or my computer to crash.

Need to suppress my inner geek before I try reprogramming the microwave for time travel, thus reconfirming my semi-idiot status when it comes to technology.

Urgent note to self: Quick! Try to contact Kari from "MythBusters" before power fa …, dang! Too late. Someday, you red-haired scientific beauty, you will be mine. Oh, you WILL be mine.

As long as My Love is cool with it, of course.

* * *

Finally think of and write a decent piece (maybe, possibly) for a long-in-coming project.

"Mary Tyler Moore" theme plays mentally in my head.

My manhood takes another blow. Stupid brain!

* * *

While walking down the supermarket aisle, Thing 1 says, "Hey, Dad! They're playing our song."

On the ceiling speakers, wafting through the shelves of soup and tomato paste, I hear:

I got it! (I got it!) I got it!

I got your number on the wall!

I got it! (I got it!) I got it!

For a good time call!

I had that song on CD we were listening to on a car trip three or four years ago. From the backseat, the Things kept yelling for miles, "Play that number song again!"

Tommy TuTone sure beats that Lindsay Lohan CD she was into one summer.

* * *

I start a fire.

In the fireplace.

Without any Duraflame assistance.

Note to self: Stop eyeballin' that freakin' microwave!

* * *

Thing 2 appears in the living room, giggling, tripping, my pajama bottoms hiked up to his chest as the dog nips at the ankle cuffs.

"Can I sleep in these, Dad?"

"As long as I can take a picture first."

"OK."

My Little Chickadee

For the past few winters, I have put two bird feeders off the deck outside my office. It's a tradition I've inherited from my father, a man who spends more on birdseed in a given month than he does on clothes in a decade. He's a good man in that way, even if he's not fashionable.

My feeders are a pretty popular spot with the locals:


The regulars include a flock of mourning doves and one of chickadees; one Pileated Woodpecker (known as Alan) that perches on the exact same rung on the right feeder every time; another woodpecker (Charlie) that's fond of Nat Nast bowling shirts and hookers; and a male cardinal (below) and his mate:

I know the cardinals are an item because I caught them nesting in one of my shrubs this past spring. For the record, they don't practice birth control. Or restraint. Go Big Red!

Then, of course, there's these idiots:

Ever use a product that claims to repel squirrels? Better yet, ever use one that worked? I think the last "repellent" I dowsed the feeder and seed with was actually a mislabeled MSG for the ravenous Eastern Gray tree rodent. It also caught the fancy of our wonder mutt, Murphy.

I'll spare you the photo of dog-poop shaped birdseed. But, for the record, the squirrels ate that crap, too.

It's pleasant to occasionally turn to my left, away from the online records of my dwindling IRA and the regular e-mail correspondence from my two biggest spammers (Jay Markoff, president of MasterpieceBanner.com, and Groton Benton, seller of contact information for America's gynecologists), and unwind with the antics of my feathered friends and even those furry bastards.

Except for about once a month when I'm alarmed by a heart-deadening thump upon my sliding glass doors.

Upon hearing this, I'll get up, look out and -- sure enough -- slumped upon my deck like a pouting Citibank executive whose just been told bailout funds won't pay for his luxury retreat in Tahoe, will be a bird that flew smack into my sliding glass door.

Sometimes the poor things die on impact. Sometimes they die of fright after Murphy gives them a French kiss and presents them to me like they were a free bouquet from ProFlowers.com (hurry -- the contest ends Friday). Once in a while, they're just stunned and need a few minutes to get reoriented. That's when I get out the box:

This is Zeppo, my first rescue of the winter. He was lying on his side, eyes wide open, breast pumping hard for air. I scooped him up, righted him and held the dog at bay so he could fix his horizontal hold.

After about 10 minutes, he was still breathing, just not moving. I started combing my Rolodex for the number of my vet.

Unable to find my vet's number, which is good because I've paid the man enough to nip, tuck and de-giardia Murphy in the last two years anyway, I went out and shook Zeppo's box a bit to try to jumpstart him.

Sure enough, he hopped out, right onto my threshold. Then he sputtered a little further along:

Here's your closeup, Zeppo buddy:

I stepped outside and Zeppo revved up and ZOOM, straight through the railings and into the woods.

Maybe I missed my calling in the veterinary sciences? Anyway, hurray for Zeppo and good lu-...

Wait, what's this? Right on my cedar planks.

Frickin' little turd!

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