Dogs Don’t Suck, They Lick

Dogs don’t suck, they lick.

Now, I know that some will have looked at the heading and become intrigued, thinking that they were about to read about bestiality. Not today Brian, sorry.

No, I have actually been thinking about the way that dogs drink and why they drink the way they do. I read an article a while back that described and illustrated just how dogs managed to get water. It seems that the tongue of a dog will curl into a cup shape and pull the water into its mouth that way. I know that Buster drinks better when his bowl is full of cool, clean water. He has gotten used to drinking from a half full bowl that has too much dog spit in it. I forget sometimes. Sue me!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Ch2pNkZwU

Buster isn’t one of those dogs that will take a drink from convenient puddles while we are walking, preferring to wait until we get home. I have never tested him to see if he would drink from a dirty puddle by keeping him away from home for an extended period. I would like to, but I think that would border on animal cruelty rather than scientific curiosity. No sense going to court for no good reason.

You would think that since evolution gave dogs more or less pointy faces they would have developed the ability to suck. I mean, they don’t have thumbs so they are unable to grab a cup like we do. Dogs are colour blind and they have an incredible sense of smell which would be unpleasant more often than beneficial. I thought that God would have given the dog people a break with the sucking thing.

 

My buddy has a dog that is getting very old and has built a stand for her food and drink so that she doesn’t have to bend over for nourishment. I guess she sometimes chokes a little while eating. I’d choke too if I had to eat dog food, but that is a taste issue. The way I look at it is that when Buster starts making some money then he can buy whatever fancy ass food he wants. Until that time, he gets to eat the fifteen kilo bag of hard, smelly, nutritious bits of simulated liver and chicken. Mmmmmm….

 

Unlike Buster, I have quenched my thirst in a dirty, brackish pool of tepid water. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have a dog’s sense of smell. I wouldn’t mind having a tongue that would curl into a cup though.

Bummer Blog

Eight days ago it was the 20^th anniversary of my father passing away.

From what I understand, he had been shovelling snow and clearing snow off of some bushes when he died. The end of October is pretty early for a heavy snow dump, but you are never going to win an argument with Mother Nature. Mean bitch! Dad was a diabetic and it turned out that a blood clot stopped his heart. I blame Mother Nature and with snow on the horizon I plan on being very careful.

I have been careful for the past twenty years and as each year passes I become just a little more cautious when I have to clear the sidewalks. I have been trying to win a lottery so that I could fly away from the snow, but so far Lady Luck hasn’t favoured me. There is a good chance that Lady Luck and Mother Nature are sisters. Evil witches tend to hang out together.

I remember that we were having unseasonably warm weather in Calgary on that day. I am sure that I was planning on calling dad and bragging about how much nicer our Alberta weather was than what they had in Ontario. We don’t often have nicer weather so I took every opportunity to rub it in. Dad was too nice to point out that our weather was shitty for the most part. My boss came out to my walk and told me to go home and that he would see that the rest of the mail got delivered. He wouldn’t tell me why, he just told me to go home.

Arwen took the call from Mom. She was too young, but she was also the only one at home. I still feel bad that she had to handle that particular situation. Maybe she is the stronger for it, but I am sure she would rather I took the call. Me too.

I remember being at Mom and Dad’s place for the funeral and I kept finding myself in his tiny workroom in the basement. That was where he kept the things that meant something to him. I have a room like that too. When I die, the kids may find themselves down in my tiny, crowded workroom and if they look around they will see all of the things that keep a part of my being. Most of the stuff is and will be just crap to anyone but me. I hope they take the time to look at the stuff down there and touch those things that I touched. I hope that the grandkids find something in that workroom that they can take for themselves as a memory of “Poppa”.

No matter what happens, the memories will be with them at all times, the good ones and the bad ones. I feel closest to dad when I am in Home Depot just walking up and down the aisles looking at ‘possibilities’. I did that with dad a few times, not as many as I would have liked, but enough times to be permanently imprinted on my mind.

This is kind of a bummer blog for the first one in a long time, but it is what I am thinking of tonight. Hopefully they will get more upbeat in the future.