Canine Consumption

Via Andrew Sullivan.....Gene Weingarten encourages a realistic view of dogs.

I think we understand that one of the most endearing traits all dogs share is that they are absolute knuckleheads. In fact, if you examine the top of a dog's head -- check it out right now, if you happen to have a dog nearby -- you will see that they all have this lump there, right in the middle, toward the back. Feel it? My daughter, who is in veterinary school, informs me this is the occipital crest, but my medical theory is ... that's the knuckle!

As I was writing this speech, a friend sent me a link to a story from England, where veterinarians had operated on a family dog, expecting to confront and extract a huge stomach tumor, but instead found, and I quote, "enough clothing to fill a clothesline," including two rugby gloves, two golf gloves, one mitten, one stocking, nine socks and a dish towel.

James Lileks also had some words on this subject recently.

Many years ago my dog harked up a straight pin an inch and a half long. I stared at the mess in amazement -- are you auditioning to be a circus sword swallower? A pin? Branching out into the metal food group now?.......The same dog ate a piece of nicotine gum. I chastised him, of course -- I'll let you out in the middle of the night to do the other things, but if you're thinking of whining because you want to go out for a cigarette, forget it.

That dog is now 14. He has trouble getting up the stairs, and is either deaf as a brick or tired of my conversation, but otherwise he is the same companion we've had since the first Clinton term.