Dogs Not Doing That

It has been suggested to me that, for a column about postcards which show dogs doing other things than urinating, there were way too many references to dogs peeing. I am sensitive to the comments of my readers, so I feel I need to show you a few of the postcards in my inventory which deal with dogs not peeing.

Folk studies have considered the dog very seriously, for our species has coexisted with the dog for millennia without ever quite making up its mind. Our loyal companion bears a name which for years was a nasty thing to call somebody. To this day societies for the adoration of dogs coexist with those who feel we need to improve by planet by eliminating all those mangy canines. With so many contradictions, it should not be surprising that the number of postcards dealing with dogs peeing should exist alongside those which deal with not peeing.

Mind you, we have no real details about what they think of our own methods of dealing with the problem, as seen at the top of this column.

:Let us deal first with the three hundred pound doodle on the couch. Any cartoonist who could draw a hydrant and a dog (and some who couldn’t) dealt with this notion.

In a fine old joke which didn’t make it into our joke quizzes, an eager cub reporter runs into the editor’s office yelling “Boss, boss! Big news!” The editor, tired of enthusiastic kids, grunts, “What? Man bites dog?” “No!” says the rookie, “But a fire hydrant sprayed one!”

Sometimes unfeeling humans set up barricades to a dog’s natural instincts.

What on earth is a dog to do in the face of such overt gentrification?

In truth, of course, most dogs will not have much of a problem with this little human folly.

When a dog has its eyes on a target, human ingenuity can only go so far in thwarting the process. (By the way, no one who has not walked a dog has any notion of how many muscles the smallest dog can develop when the right tree or signpost is involved. That yellow triangle that says “YIELD” is just advising the dog walker on the quickest solution.)

I mentioned the relationship of dogs and trees in postcards. Look closely here and you’ll notice the trees seem happy to see the visitor. (The hydrant is reserving comment.)

The theme is so prevalent in postcards that a dog being squirted by a hydrant just barely beats out the spectacle of a tree astonished to see a dog walk right past.