The Dog's Diary:

Day number 180

8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 181

8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Day number 182

8:00 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
9:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
9:40 am - OH BOY! A WALK! MY FAVORITE!
10:30 am - OH BOY! A CAR RIDE! MY FAVORITE!
11:30 am - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
12:00 noon - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
1:00 pm - OH BOY! THE YARD! MY FAVORITE!
1:30 pm - ooooooo. bath. bummer.
4:00 pm - OH BOY! THE KIDS! MY FAVORITE!
5:00 PM - OH BOY! DOG FOOD! MY FAVORITE!
5:30 PM - OH BOY! MOM! MY FAVORITE!

Excerpts from the Cat's Diary

DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant.

DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair...must try this on their bed.

DAY 765 - Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body, in attempt to make them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear into their hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was ... Hmmm. Not working according to plan.

DAY 768 - I am finally aware of how sadistic they are. For no good reason I was chosen for the water torture. This time however it included a burning foamy chemical called shampoo." What sick minds could invent such a liquid. My only consolation is the piece of thumb still stuck between my teeth.

DAY 771 - There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the foul odor of the glass tubes they call "beer". More importantly I overheard that my confinement was due to MY power of "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my advantage.

DAY 774 - I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a half-wit. The bird on the other hand as got to be an informant, and speaks with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal room his safety is assured. But I can wait, it is only a matter of time...

• If you want someone who will do anything to please you, get a dog.
• If you want someone who will bring you the newspaper without tearing through it first for the sports page, get a dog.
• If you want someone who'll make a total fool of himself because he's so glad to see you, get a dog.
• If you want someone who eats whatever you put in front of him and never says his mother made it better, get a dog.
• If you want someone who's always eager to go out any time you ask and anywhere you want to go, get a dog.
• If you want someone who can scare away burglars without waving a lethal weapon around, endangering you and all the neighbors, get a dog.
• If you want someone who never touches the remote, couldn't care less about Monday Night Football, and watches dramatic movies with you as long as you want, get a dog.
• If you want someone who'll be content just to snuggle up and keep you warm in bed, and who you can kick out of bed if he slobbers and snores, get a dog.
• If you want someone who never criticizes anything you do, doesn't care how good or bad you look, acts as though every word you say is worth hearing, never complains, and loves you unconditionally all the time, get a dog!

On the other hand...

• If you want someone who never comes when you call him, totally ignores you when you walk in the room, leaves hair all over the place, walks all over you, prowls around all night and come home only to eat and sleep all day, and acts as though you are there only to see that HE's happy...

If dogs could ask God questions ...

• Dear God, how come people love to smell flowers, but seldom smell one another? Where are their priorities?

• Dear God, when we get to Heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it the same old story?

• Dear God, excuse me, but why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not one named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around? We dogs love a good ride! I know every breed can't have it's own model, but it would be real easy to rename the Chrysler Eagle the Chrysler Beagle!

• Dear God, if a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?

• Dear God, is it true that in Heaven, dining room tables have on-ramps?

• Dear God ,if we come back as humans, is that good or bad?

• Dear God, more meatballs, less spaghetti, please.

• Dear God, when we get to the Pearly Gates, do we have to shake hands to get in?

• Dear God, we dogs understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent, ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?

• Dear God, are there dogs on other planets, or are we alone? I have been howling at the Moon and stars for a long time, but all I ever hear back is the beagle across the street!

• Dear God, are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?

• My human will never let me eat her pet hamster, and I am at peace with that.
• I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie.
• I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.
• I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink's drain.
• I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I'm getting plenty of roughage.
• I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur.)
• I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.
• I will not fish out my human's partial plate from the glass so that the dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human. (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.)
• I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.
• I will not drag dirty socks up from the basement in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs so that my human can admire my "kill."
• I will not perch on my human's chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.
• We will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over any humans' bed while they're trying to sleep.
• Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.
• I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.
• I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.
• I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.
• I will not complain that my bottom is wet and that I am thirsty after sitting in my water bowl.
• I will not intrude on my human's candle-lit bubble bath and singe my bottom.
• I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.
• If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.
• It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.
• When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot. This hurts, and my scream scares my human.
• When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house. It is not necessary to check every door.
• Birds do not come from the bird feeder. I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.
• I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.
• I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.
• The dog can see me coming when I stalk her. She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls. That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.
• Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years. I don't have to act as if I've just discovered the Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my window.
• I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.
• When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.
• I will not swat my human's head repeatedly when she's on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.
• When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.
• Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.
• I am a walking static generator. My human doesn't need my help installing a new board in her computer.
• I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.
• I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.
• I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emiognaioerp ga3qi4 taija3tgv aa35 a.
• Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters), stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.
• I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren't laughing so hard.
• I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.
• The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.
• I will not put a live mole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.
• I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.
• I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.
• I will learn to relax at the vet's office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that's there now like "MEAN!!" "BITER!!!" and "GET HELP!!!!!"
• I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.
• I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.
• If I MUST claw my human, I will not do it in such a fashion that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.
• If I must give a present to my human's overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a big live cockroach, even if it isn't as tasty.
• I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea. I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards. I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub. And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunches when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.
• A warm pepperoni pizza is not a good place for a nap. 

The one dog says to the other, "Wait here a minute, I'll be right back." He walks across the street and sniffs this fire hydrant for about a minute, then walks back across the street.

The other dog says, "What was that about?"

The dog first dog says, "Oh, I was just checking my messages."

• If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
• If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
• If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
• If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
• If you can overlook when people take things out on you when, through no
• fault of yours, something goes wrong,
• If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
• If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
• If you can conquer tension without medical help,
• If you can relax without liquor,
• If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then you are probably a dog.

1. If I like it, its' mine.
2. If it's in my mouth, it's mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If I'm chewing something up, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it just looks like mine, it's mine.
8. If I saw it first, it's mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine.
10. If it's broken, it's yours.

• Visitors: Quickly determine which guest is afraid of dogs. Charge across the room, barking loudly and leap playfully on this person. Extra points if you can gently grab their hands. They love that.
    
• Licking: Always take a big drink immediately before licking humans. They prefer clean tongues. During the human’s dinner time, when you are in the same room is the best time to give yourself a full body bath. The louder you are the cleaner they think you are.
   
• Sniffing: Humans like to be sniffed…. Everywhere. It is your duty as the family dog to accommodate them and anyone that you meet. Crotch sniffing will always get their attention. 
   
• Holes: If digging is a must do not dig one big hole (to noticeable). Rather, dig many smaller ones all over the yard as they will blend in and may not get noticed. Dogs with human gardeners are required to give their human a paw and help dig up anything growing in their garden.
   
• Housebreaking: This is very important to humans and must be taken seriously. So break as much of the house as possible. Best time is when they are late for your feeding. Common rewards are: new toy, let outside to run around, taken to school to meet new friends, more walks.
   
• Walks: When on a walk never go to the bathroom on your own lawn. Always go on the lawns that are greener and better taken care of than your humans. This makes them feel as though you appreciate their lawn better than the neighbors. Always pull as hard as you can. Walks are short enough so it is our responsibility to ensure that our humans see as much of the neighborhood as possible. It is also our responsibility to show our humans the fun and excitement that is felt when chasing cats and squirrels, so if at all possible pull them down to the ground so they too can smell the furry little rodents.
   
• Playing: Indoor playing can also help in the above area of housebreaking, if you are good. When playing outdoors always jump up on your human after you stepped in one of you own messes. They appreciate being shown where you previously went and will always clean it up right away. They also foolishly try to be like anther dog and try and play chase. Indulge them and show them how it is done by sneaking up from behind and grabbing their behind. They love this and will then proceed to chase you again.
   
• Barking: Humans have you around because they do not know how to effectively bark at noises. You must bark a lot to show them how it is done. Bark at every noise. It will make them feel safe. This especially works well in the middle of the night when all are asleep. It is your duty to alert them to all noises so don’t let doggiedom down.
   
• Vet visits: Since we cannot effectively tell them that something hurts we must lower ourselves to a level they can understand and bite the vet. At that point your human will hold you close and talk nicely to you.
   
• Feeding: If something doesn’t taste right then throw it up and eat it again. Sometimes it is better the second time around. Do this in front of your human to show them you appreciate their effort.
   
• Sleeping: Sleep as much as possible when your human is gone. That way you will have plenty of energy to play with them when they get home. If they are too nice and pretend like they don’t want to play then you must encourage them to play by running wildly around the house barking. (this also will help with the above mentioned housebreaking responsibilities. See how important housebreaking is) Also, If you must sleep when they are home then do it in the middle of the pathway. This puts the human at ease since they know right where you are if they need you.

Being the family dog isn’t all fun and games as the above mentioned responsibilities show. However if they are taken seriously you will have a long and happy life with your human.

• I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
• I will try to remember that the garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff.
• I do not need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm lying under the coffee table.
• I will not roll my toys behind the fridge.
• I must shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the house.
• I will not eat the cats' food, before or after they eat it.
• I will stop trying to find the few remaining pieces of clean carpet in the house when I am about to throw up.
• I will not throw up in the car.
• I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc.
• I will not lick my human's face after eating animal poop.
• "Kitty box crunchies" are not food.
• I will not eat any more socks and then redeposit them in the backyard after processing.
• The diaper pail is not a cookie jar.
• I will not wake Mommy up by sticking my cold, wet nose up her bottom end.
• I will not chew my human's toothbrush and not tell them.
• I will not chew crayons or pens, especially not the red ones, or my people will think I am hemorrhaging.
• When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled down when it's raining outside.
• We do not have a doorbell. I will not bark each time I hear one on TV.
• I will not steal my Mom's underwear and dance all over the back yard with it.
• The sofa is not a face towel. Neither are Mom & Dad's laps.
• My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
• I will not bite the officer's hand when he reaches in for Mom's driver's license and car registration.