Well, once again it's deer hunting season here in the country so I thought I'd express some more thoughts on the subject. I realize that last month, when I recited that joke about the Muslim, the Christian and the deer going into a bar, some of you accused me of deerophobia, but to that all I can say is lighten up, it was a joke. Racy? Yes. Off-color? Yes. Scatological? Well, a bit. But all the same, it was just a joke and funnier than "h" "e" double-toothpicks. So chill. I'm a dog. Learn to live with it. I'm gonna be dead relatively soon in human years anyway. Save your hate mail for where it can make a difference.

Now don't get me wrong. I enjoy a choice, Grade-A two-week-old chunk of rotting deer carcass as much as the next dog. The aroma alone is to die for. But when it comes to having a philosophical position on an official season specifically designated for the hunting of such antlered creatures, well, all I can say is that I'm a herder not a hunter. So I asked Woody, who's more of a hunter by genetic pre-disposition, to explain the rationale to me.

As you might imagine, I first had to sit through a long harangue about how having any official period when he could NOT hunt deer or any other d*** thing he was interested in killing and eating, or just killing, or even just chasing with intent to do bodily harm, was a violation of his constipational rights and how could any meat-loving dog (referring to me) think otherwise without being a total hippopotamus. There was also something about a treaty, but I slept through most of this, so pardon me if some of it all doesn't sound right.

But after the initial rant, his argument began taking on more substance.

Woody noted that long before bipeds had a deer hunting season, our great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. (I lost count) grandfathers the wolves used to roam the woods and keep the deer population healthy by keeping the size of the deer herds in proportion to the resources available to them. This promoted a healthy ecosystem and historical records show that back in the day there were very few reports of deer vandalizing human gardens.

[Note: At this point in the discussion I pointed out to Woody that our great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. (I lost count) grandfathers the wolves always killed the weakest of the deer population and thus strengthened the genetics of the herd, whereas human hunters tend to only kill the biggest and brightest of the herd, eschewing killing the weak and infirm as "not macho enough," therefore slowly reducing the quality of the species, to which Woody replied, "Duh. That's what happens when you give a job to an immigrant. And it's also why deer are so dumb these days."]

Anyway, some time in the late Domesticated Chicken era, our great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. (I lost count) grandfathers the wolves ran into a bit of a conflict-of-interest crisis and soon found themselves forced to survive by moving to isolated regions of the world full of snow where they could make a living as actors in documentary movies done by hirsute young men in big shoes for the Discovery Channel. Granted, having sex in front of a camera is both intimidating and embarrassing, but as everybody knows, reality TV is big these days, and it can often be a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

But I digress.

The point that Woody was begrudgingly making was that the ecosystem needed a hunting season for deer because without the wolf, the deer population was growing increasingly unhealthy. Many environmental-activist humans tried to address this crisis by attacking deer with their cars, pick-ups and SUVs, but so few deer ever graze on the freeway that it wasn't producing the desired result, plus it was having an adverse effect on car insurance.

The next logical step was to institute a formal season for reducing the deer population. The various state legislative bodies had two choices. They could establish a deer-hunting season for dogs, or they could establish a deer-hunting season for humans. And as historians have noted, the decision hinged on the economy. If they established a deer hunting season for dogs, then dogs would go out and kill deer and that would be that. But if they established a deer hunting season for humans, then it would provide a economic boost to a significant part of the human pocketbook.

For starters, there's the obvious. You gotta buy a license to try to kill a deer, and you gotta pay fees if you actually succeed. (That's the part that supports your local politician's junkets.) Then you have to buy a pick-up-load of guns and ammunition. And a pick-up or SUV to put them in. You also gotta rent land to hunt on, and you gotta buy a deer stand or two or three at a couple hundred dollars a pop to sit in where the deer can't see you, and you gotta spend a fortune on deer food to attract the deer and you gotta buy camouflage clothing in a variety of seasonal motifs to hide yourself from the deer and then you have to buy a bright orange hat or vest to make sure you don't shoot each other. And if and when you finally manage to kill a deer, you pay someone to mount the antlers and butcher the meat.

And of course if you don't actually live in a deer-populated area, then there's the whole cost of travel, motel, and booze that has to be considered.

So, as became quite apparent to me, and should to you also, we should not scoff at those who strive to keep our deer population healthy. Their huge sacrifices often end up costing them $50-75 for a pound for meat, money that could easily buy them far greater quantities of choice filet mignon if all they cared about was food, and yet they persevere because it's worth it from an environmental standpoint.

However, unfortunately for me, this was all supposed to be a lead-in for a whole different point I wanted to make. But that will have to wait for next time, whenever that is.

snarf snarf snarf. eye yam sew sew very disappointed. their it was inn black and white type... "catproof your computer." yes yes yes eye thought. catproof my computer. eye was sew excited eye peed in my plants. (course eye always dew that.) eye was putting inn my paypal password sew fast the little password dots was turning into ovals. awl eye could think about was finally having a gilda-proof web blog. butt knooooow. it turns out that pawsense software only does windows and does knot due macintosh. eye yam sew sew very disappointed.

any weigh, if ewe half a blog end a windows computer end a belligerent cat maybe this is four ewe. as four me, eye'm going two sea if eye can get a recording contract with these people dewing those "sounds that annoy cats." eye can dew that.

hmm, hmm, hmm... hour sew very cool reader annie recently axed us if wee had "any experience with spinning possums?" well buoy did she come two the write place. dew eye have experience with possums? dew humans shit in a white bowl full of water?

eye must first concede that theirs sum disagreement concerning the intelligence of possums. four instance, the n.o.s. claims that possums our actually smarter then, ahem, dogs. (well excuuuuse me.) butt eye suspect that n.o.s. is a fox network web site intent on sensationalism and rabbit rousing. after all, the vulnerable naturalist vernon bailey has shown quite definitively that the possum brain consists of 25 dried beans.

the thing ewe half two no about possums is that they like two play dead. in fact, that's why wee call them possums, because they like two play "possum." of coarse, playing possum works just fine if know won else nose year playing possum. butt wons a predator -- four instance me -- nose that possums like two play possum, well then it makes them pretty easy two catch, as ewe mite imagine.

the other thing ewe half to no about possums is that, according two the literature, possums are marsupials, witch means that they carry there kids around inn pouches ore duffle bags ore some sort of shoulder bag thing.

ones ewe no awl this its pretty easy two figure out why possums spin around. its because they want two play dead butt their carrying this shoulder bag full of kids and it makes them lean sew awl the beans in there head shift to won side and, well, it just makes them lopsided and it sets them two spinning. inn fact, sum people traditionally refer too possums as "o"-possums. the "o" symbolizes the spinning circle, end "possum" refers two playing dead. eye think its either latin ore texan inn origin.

hears me and chigger talking too a possum. he's bean playing dead four about three days but he's knot fooling us.

ark ark ark. their are living breathing mammals out their who sum times axe me "woody, why don't dogs climb trees?" they point out that us dogs often chase things two a tree, but never follow them things up a tree.

now isle grant ewe that year typical cat wood chase a rodent write up a tree, ore even a telephone poll. yes, they wood follow pray write up the tree, wear as a dog wood stop at the bottom of the tree and resort two looking up with the evil stare and barking out curses like "ewe come down write now ore isle pee on year sister's favorite mating spot."

my good friend barry suggests that this is because dogs kant actually climb trees, two witch eye say, phooey. dogs could climb trees if they wanted two. fact of the matter is that this is just another example of wear dogs are smarter than cats. dogs could climb if it maid cents, but hay. hear's what happens to animals who aren't as smart as dogs.

and their are those out their who think eye make this stuff up.

We're very uncomfortable talking about the war in Iraq when Gilda's around. (click pic for larger version)

spam spam spam spam spam spam. eye love spam. at least when eye can get it out of the can. it's just unsolicited email eye can't stand. eye mean who does their marketing research? eye'm a dog ewe fool. eye don't kneed a bigger wangus, and eye certainly don't want bigger booberinos and eye'm knot stupid enough two think that some dog stranger in nigeria really wants too send me a hundred million dog biscuits four safekeeping. and looking at animals getting, well, intimate, with naked humans is, well, there's just know accounting four what sum dogs will dew four a cookie. eye guess ewe really half two wonder if humans are really dumb enough two by something from someone who gives them a fake return address. must bee. unless their are humans dumb enough two keep sending stuff out with fake addresses even though know won bys anything. butt awl this is beside the point, which is, inn spite of everything else, the fact that eye'm a total sucker four kinky squirrel porno spam. arf arf arf. ewe no why? because it's really hard for a squirrel two run fast in high heels. har har har.

tisque tisque tisque, the unthinkable has happened and hear comes my "eye told ewe sew" diatribe -- its a suicide squirrel attack write hear in hour country. while spot w. dog lolligags around about legislation that will give fillet mignon two every dam pure-bred, claiming it will trickle down to the masses (it will trickle down alright, but it will taste like crap... (hum, is that sew bad... (hey, eye like the taste of crap...))), the squirrel terrorists have maid substantial inn rhodes.

this chilling story is pure, unadulterated pull-its-hair-prize quality war-time inn-yor-face journalism. listen two the reporter jeff gould describing the place of the squirrel in our culture: "the squirrel, though irreplaceable, is worth about 16 cents on the internet, its value mainly in its tail, which can be used as part of a fishing lure."

yeah, fishing lure. that's reel gritty righting. personally eye think 16 sense is hyperbole, butt it brings a tear two the eye of this patriotic dog to read the description of the terrorist squirrel in question:

"The squirrel was right up on the transformer. His hair was standing on end and he was lying on his back, hands folded over his chest, looking up at the sky."

hay men. and good buy.

barf barf barf. thyme two clear up sum fictions witch appeared inn the previous post. four starters, chigger maid a lot of excuses four me not posting four a wile, witch was nice of her, butt the truth is, just like these folks, eye've been out squirrel fishing. however, unlike those people, eye'm knot really into catch-and-release. (you wouldn't bee either if you'd ever tasted my thin crust squirrel-and-catfood pizza.)

ewe mite recall that eye also mentioned another squirrel-fishing web site a while back. you've got to figure that with too sights devoted two the subject of squirrel fishing, can a cable station bee far behind? ore maybe stuffed squirrels mounted to your wall that sing silly songs when you walk buy?

then their was gilda spouting off inn the comments about why guillermo never posts. (sheesh. some cats are just on the wrong side of the firewall.) the reel reason guillermo never posts is that he only speaks cat spanish, and to make matters worse, he only speaks in sports clichés. sew when wee asked him to contribute two blogdogs, wee got the following:

"meow de méow esta meow y meow. ¿meów, méow? esto meow meow méow meow. meõw méow salmón taco meow meow meów. una meow de méow meow. ¡grande méow y meow de meow meow meów!"

wee tried running it through alta vista's babelcat butt what we got was pretty useless:

"first all desire to thank for anubis of this opportunity. we are taking him a game simultaneously. we had to upwards make it a step for this game. they were a great equipment, and we were lucky to go here with a rodent. it could not have gained without my team. this is what we had formed during the tuna annually. we finished deciding to leave and to have the pleasure there."

no wonder some people feel threatened by cat blogging.

Our most brilliant good friend Buster sends along a referral to the following brilliant bits of brilliant cat slander: Viking Kittens and Independent Woman played by kittens. These are both brought to us by the brilliant Joel Veitch, whoever he is. Mr. Veitch obviously shares our belief that when viewed through the human gaze, a cat is only useful as a comic construct for the purposes of postmodern deconstruction of contemporary music, which can then be reconstructed using a pseudo-amateur anti-methodology that leverages a technological neo-colonialism reified by third world pestilence and greed. Without a doubt the post-profundity of this work predates anything that's been done since its creation.

We heard from Spot the White House Dog again recently. She was claiming that K-9 intelligence had reason to believe that a deer cell in our area was developing weapons of mass destruction and she declared a Code Fuchsia alert. (Like color-coding means a thing to a dog.) My response was "Well, doh." Deer ARE a weapon of mass destruction. They'll eat the wings off your fleas if you let 'em. Anyway, after a long and sometimes heated debate, Woody and I voted not to grant Spot permission to initiate pre-emptive strikes. The last time we tolerated pre-emptive strikes around here our friend Buster tried to kill all our ducks. He said they were planning to invade the garden. Yeah, right.

Those White House dogs can TRY to scare me, but I know that in reality its all about controlling the global market for crude protein. Whoever controls crude protein controls the price of dry dog food. And whoever controls the price of dry dog food... Well... Enough said.

yes yes yes eye no eye joke about this stuff sometimes, but here's proof of the conspiracy. its the global squirrel network. its written in code, sew it might look moor harmless than it really is. just keep in mind that "squirrel" in some rare rodent dialects actually means "bushy-tailed infidel on a mission to destroy the balance of nature and digital subscriber television as wee no it."

Here's some impressive and appropriate news. Gilda has made the rogue's gallery at Mean Kitty. So to celebrate, I offer a toast: "May your hairballs taste bitter, your fleas survive and prosper, and your claws always get stuck in the couch." Congratulations. The honor is well deserved.

In his post earlier this week Woody noted the terrorist attack on the White House lawn. In response to his post, we received the following statement from Spot, the senior White House dog.

For Immediate Release The White House Office of the Dog Secretary

Statement by the Presidential Dog:

Last week our way of life, our very freedom came under attack by squirrels in a deliberate and deadly terrorist act. The victim, a century-old yellow buckeye tree on the White House lawn, has been lost forever. This tree stood as a symbol of all we hold dear, and I myself have expressed on the subject many times.

In this act we saw evil, the very worst of squirrel nature. An attack in the front yard of our country's alpha dog that was intended to frighten us into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; we are strong.

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. Barney, my pack mate, and I have directed our full resources to finding those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the squirrels who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

These squirrels are only one species in the axis of evil that also includes ground squirrels, red squirrels, grey squirrels, fox squirrels and bunnies. This is a conflict without battlefields or beachheads, a conflict with opponents who believe they are invisible. Yet, they are mistaken. They will be exposed, and they will discover what others in the past have learned:  Those who make war against dogs have chosen their own destruction. 

As my human so eloquently noted last week in Nashville: "Fool me once, shame on — uh — shame on you. Fool me — fool me — uh — you see — you can't get fooled again." Of course I'm just a dog, so I don't really know what that means, but I'm impressed at how he segued deftly from a potential malapropism into the lyrics from a Who song in mid-sentence. It's that kind of mental acuity that should have squirrels everywhere quaking in their — uh — whatever they wear on their feet.

Sincerely,
Spot
spot@whitehouse.gov

Now it needs to be pointed out that Spot is the daughter of Millie, Presidential Dog during the first Bush caretaker administration, and was born in the White House. In fact, Spot is the first off-spring of a former Presidential Dog to ever also hold that post. I mention this because there are some pundits who believe that it was Millie's war against squirrels back in 1991 and her subsequent failure to totally eliminate the squirrel problem that has resulted in this current crisis. Others believe that Spot is mainly interested in using this as an excuse to avenge her mother and is totally ignoring diplomatic solutions. Squirrels respond angrily that Spot is "a rabid mongrel bitch bent on total lawn domination," but then we don't really care what squirrels think, do we?

arggrggg. while the authorities are wasting there thyme harassing me, terrorist squirrels have invaded the white house grounds: white house loses tree to squirrels. any fool knows that terrorist profiling pretty much begins and ends with squirrels. and cats. and possums.

did eye mention cats? on on on on a happier note, theirs this very astute and politically correct web sight that gets write two the heart of the problem: mean kitty.com. the author has torn the lid off the "cute cat" fallacy. knot only is the sight insitefully brilliant in it's perception of cats, theirs also a devastating "dance" page and lynx two other cat exposé sights.

yeah yeah yeah. i new it, eye just could knot prove it. until now that is. squirrels have some serious behavioral problems. now it's awl out inn the open in this web study on hazing and suicidal behavior: "squirrel hazing--the untold story." it wood be sad if it wasn't sew predictable, and it wasn't squirrels. as the authors note: "from cheek stuffing to car racing...anything goes for these wantonly self-destructive creatures." czech it out.

Aaarrgggff. SomE things just nevEr get easIER. hoW was eye suPPosed two no that "MOUSE" was a Cute name for a stupid point-AND-click devIce? It tasteD terrible, sew I gUess I shOULD have known. Anyway, THis graphics tablEt is much more Intuitive.

But wHat I really Want to talk about is Squirrels. Yes. Squirrels. Chigger might jest, BUt sQuirrels are a major preoccupation oF tHe educATed clAsses, of Which eYe couNt myself. SmaRt peOple and SmarT doGs tHink alIke i alwayS say. Check this Out by too HarVarD engineers. It's about The cOOlest tHing I've scene sincE GilDA (the cat) goT locKed in The cLoseT foR a weak (in Dog yeaRs) And pooPed in the Boss's shoes.

Squirrel Fishing: A new approach to rodent performance evaluation

aM eye write ore am eye wRite!