Card Me, Please!

What will they think of next? First they hassle young kids old enough to fight for this country by not allowing them to drink. Now they want to impose their will by carding us poor canines before allowing us to have a good meal in public.

Chicago restaurants have grown accustomed to demanding IDs to screen out underage drinkers. They’ll soon have a new headache on their hands: “carding” dogs that accompany their owners to sidewalk cafes.

The carding is not associated with drinking but with making sure we’re up to date on our vaccinations.

The ordinance, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 if the full Council goes along, states that “only dogs bearing a rabies vaccination tag or other proof of rabies vaccinations shall be permitted” in establishments that agree to buy the two-year, $250 license.

I urge all of you to visit my new website, FakeDogID.com for all your identification needs.

You Can’t Afford Me

If you’re going to take this article on money saving tips for dog owners seriously then you can’t afford me. Here’s the advice they give on food:

Carrots

If you live with a career chewer, you know how expensive it can be to dole out rawhides or other chew treats day in and day out. One cheap option is carrots. They satisfy most dogs’ yearning for a chew with a little give, and they won’t stain your carpet.

Don’t feel too virtuous, though. Because dogs lack the digestive enzymes to break down cellulose, vegetables must be pulverized to provide nutritional value. Also, carrots tend to give a dog’s coat an orangy tint.

Green beans

Even though vets warn about the dire consequences of obesity, most owners wimp out because they can’t stand the pleading eyes or the incessant whines.

Try substituting canned green beans, which are low in calories but high in bulk, to the newly reduced portions. Chunky monkeys will still feel sated.

Parmesan cheese

Fussy eaters can be infuriating. This simple trick is a favorite of stud-dog owners. When the dogs go on a hunger strike to protest lack of access to the object of their affections, sprinkle the potent grated cheese atop the regular food and cross your fingers.

I admit, I like Parmesan cheese on my veal picata but under no circumstances do I see the enjoyment in eating green beans or carrots. If you’re an owner feeding this to your dog, please, give the canine up for adoption.

Justice Will Be Served

As Forrest Gump would say, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Credit goes to Gary Varvel … check out his work.

Halitosis Howler

We all have morning breath, now here’s a recipe specifically designed to get rid of it.

Sure you love to get kisses from your dog. But you don’t always love the sour dog breath now do you? Try this biscuits from “Throw Me a Bone” Cooper Gillespie with recipes by Sally Sampson (Simon & Schuster).

3 cups unbleached all-purpose white or whole-wheat flour, or a combination

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup buttermilk or low-fat yogurt

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley or mint leaves

How good can these be? Where’s the meat flavored Listerine?

Personally, I get rid of my halitosis by brushing right after eating kitty poo and flossing at least twice a day.

Peeping Parents

More invasion of privacy issues are raised in this article than you can shake a stick at.

Ever wonder what your pets do when they are home alone?

Jamie Skeate did more than just wonder. The 27-year-old from St. Cloud, Minn., and her husband videotaped her dogs, Bosco, a Great Dane, and Lily, a greyhound.

“Sometimes we would come home and their toys would be all over the house, and my husband and I would joke that it looked like they had had a party,” she says.

Three-year-old Bosco weighs almost 130 pounds and 5-year-old Lily weighs more than 60 pounds – more than enough to get into trouble when their owners are not home.

What if Bosco had one of the local girls over for a little bit fun? Where’s his guarantee that the video wouldn’t be posted on YouTube for the world to see?

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Book Smart

We’re getting smarter as evidenced by this article.

MORE than 75% of dogs who sat this year’s GCSE exams have achieved at least three passing grades, the government has announced.

Ministers welcomed the record results, rejecting claims that the exams were getting easier and insisting that British dogs were becoming more intelligent.

The question is, are people following in our paw prints?

1984

New technologies targeting the canine crew threaten our freedom. Big Brother is watching us.

The Global Pet Finder collar is GPS enabled, but it is smaller and works with a different premise: If you have an escape-artist dog who always gets out of the yard, this is an everyday tool to help you find it. You buy the collar for about $300 and then pay a $20 monthly fee to have Web and cell phone tracking access to your dog’s location.

If it gets lost, you can enter your information online and the site tells you exactly where the dog is. Also, you can set up alerts to inform you when the dogs run away from home. You initially use the GPS device to set up a perimeter around the house. If the dog strays from the property, you get a text message on your phone alerting you of the escape. Next year the company is coming out with a new version that’s 50 percent smaller and is more durable.

My right to privacy is being violated. Where’s the ACLU (Animal Civil Liberties Union) on this important issue?

Logan’s Run

Security breached at Logan airport by a cagey canine.

Whatever his motive, Brewster [the dog] was a little wet and very tired by the time Massachusetts Port Authority personnel spotted him passing through Logan International’s south gate…

We should all count our lucky stars that Brewster wasn’t an Islamic Terrier.

“I wish he could speak,” said Julie Knowlton, Brewster’s owner, who said she was frantic after her pet disappeared on July 9 until she received “the best message in the whole entire world.” Massport officials had her dog.

If he could speak I imagine he would say something like, “Woof, woof, woof? Bark, woof, Bark!!”

Wiser words have never been written.

Ice Ice Baby

Here’s an article on tips for keeping dogs cool.

The five suggestions are:

1. Sunscreen for pets
2. Offer a lot of water
3. Work up slowly to working out
4. Consider shaving
5. Rinse and dry after swimming

OK, you’re going to have to help me understand how number four makes it on the list. How is shaving going to help me be cool? I like my five o’clock shadow, and besides, when I wear my Don Johnson white suit with it, I look damn cool. Frankly, shaving would just make my upper lip look too big…and dorky.

My Bodyguard

The world isn’t safe. Our jobs as canines is to make it a better place, protecting the leaders of various ideologies from democracy to socialism to communism. We’re the Kevin Costner to the people’s Whitney Houston.

LABRADOR dogs worth $90,000 each will be at the security front line at next month’s APEC meeting in Sydney.

Twenty-two new explosives detection canine teams will be on hand to protect world leaders such as US President George W. Bush, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

At first I thought the $90,000 was kind of a low value for a canine. What I didn’t realize was that this was in Australian dollars. When I do the currency conversion on my calculator that actually equates to 6 gajillion US dollars. That sounds about right.

FP Superintendent Phil Spence said labradors had a sense of smell “millions of times” stronger than humans, and he was confident they would sniff out a bomb.

Note to my father…when you let one of your bombs go off, you’re killing me.

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