Open invitation to Ramble

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy being a dog?  Granted, I do hate being left alone everyday to fend for myself without opposable thumbs. Sometimes I do get bored.

But really, when I see how exhausted my Moms look when they come home from work, I think, thank god… now where’s my dinner…

So, my fans know that I listen to NPR all day long. WUNC – North Carolina Public Radio to be exact. They just finished their “fall fun drive.”  I don’t know what’s so fun about it – all they did was ask for money all week. There’s no “driving” unless they mean listening to those Car Talk guys.  But my Momma B is super excited that her hero Dick Gordon, originally from WBUR in Boston, is coming down here to do a national show from Durham. Again, I don’t get the excitement. Wasn’t Dick Gordon the commissioner on Batman?*

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I listen to NPR all day long… So I’m super smart (albeit somewhat full of myself and erroneously assume I’m progressive when in actuality I’m somewhat just as narrowminded as some of my conservative brethren because I only have one source of information for all of my news…) Of course, if I’m only going to have one viewpoint, my Moms are happy it’s a blissfully ignorant left-leaning one.

So, the Dems are finally putting the screws to the Administration about this Iraq fiasco. Better late than never, I guess. It’s what the anti-war folks have been saying since the day after 9-11, but hey, okay, welcome to the party. As W’s approval rating slips, it seems more and more safe for folks to say, how does it go, “I support the troops, just not what they’re doing.”  (I love safe answers. It’s nice that there seems to one for everything.)

If you’ve come to my site for answers. I have none. I’m a dog. All I have is opinions. You should have them too. Go read three blogs with decidedly different political slants and throw in an indymedia site for good measure. Wade through the muck, and come tell me what you got.  We can chew the fat so to speak.

Mmmmm… fat….

* Don’t flame me about the Dick Gordon crack. I know it was Commissioner James Gordon. Dick Grayson was Robin… Isn’t that impressive for a dog?

VOTE TOBY!

On this day after Election Day, I thought I give y’all something to vote on that really matters. As you know, I’ve written a lot on the right to vote (and my particular lack thereof as a canine). You can check the archives.

I entered the Dogster photo contest, just for laughs. I’m not a very vain pooch (though some have been known to disagree). You can visit my page. I value your vote.

RIP Basko

After reading and writing about something great in my last post, I have a sad story to share.  The AP wire reported that a 5-year-old drug-sniffing German shepherd named Basko died last Friday after he bit into a bag of cocaine during an annual certification search with the Redondo Beach Police Department (California).

Basko had successfully completed the search and was in his partner's car for the ride home when he had a seizure. The partner, Officer Ken Greenleaf, rushed Basko to a nearby animal clinic, where the dog died before he could be treated…Basko had been with the Police Department for four years, helping to apprehend suspects, including one wanted for murder, and assisting in the recovery of narcotics.

I wish I could go to his memorial service, but I don’t like planes.

Sometimes these things happen. Some people would say that the dog should not have been used for this line of work and it was an unnecessary death. And surely, there were things that may have been done to prevent an accidental death like this.
But like a human officer accidentally killed in the line of duty, Basko was a hero who loved doing what he did.  I stumbled across a site last year that I meant to post a link to ages ago. It was a memorial site for K-9 officers. Momma C and I sat at the computer and cried reading about the brave doggies who worked to keep our communities safe. I can’t find the exact site now, but I did find this one in Arizona that other useful links if you’re interested in learning more about police dogs.

Recently, a local politician mocked the legislature for putting money in the budget for bullet-proof dog vests. This made me sad; then, I was mad. I would like to see that fat cat chase down a subject, corner him, and alert his partner, all the while resisting the urge to chomp the dickens out of him while the guy’s waving a gun all around. I could grab the bad guy by his pant leg with my teeth, but I don’t know if I’d get that close to someone with a weapon.

If you’re going to have animals on your force, they need to be protected. Just like, if you’re going to have soldiers at war in the desert, you better equip them with flak jackets and properly armored vehicles (hint, Mr. President?).

Just my two paws.

Man Saved By Dog He Saved

I just read a posting at ABC News about a California man who was saved by his cocker spaniel.  They had driven into a 40-foot ravine and flipped upside down. The man was pinned inside by the stump that had pierce through the roof, but was able to roll down the window. He then told Honey, the cocker spaniel he had rescued from the local shelter two weeks prior, to get help.

Honey ran half a mile down the road to a neighbor’s house and directed her back to the up-turned SUV. The man had been hanging upside-down for six hours and his pulse was weakening. Rescuers were able to get him out. There is video footage here.

The man had been waiting for a cocker spaniel for a year before Honey came into his life. Karma, guys, karma.

Many apologies

I'd like to apologize to my many doggie friends for not posting in a couple months. My mom had been too busy with work to come help me with my typing. And then I got super spammed (thanks to Freda for telling me how to stop them with word verification).

I will try to keep up with this blog. So MANY things have happened since I last asked if anyone was out there. I've been watching the news about all the Gulf Coast doggies and other animals and been quite at a loss on what to say.

Let me get my thoughts together and I promise a "decent" post soon.