Further dog tales

You may have noticed that a new blog post did not appear on Friday (if you did not, do not be alarmed; neither did 99.993% of the general population). We are happy to blame the problem this time on our Internet provider, which, though obviously at fault, has declined to issue an apology regarding the inability of the blog to update. The provider further claims no knowledge of the origin of the problem, but will be happy to have a look at our line in, oh, 2013. If it has some free time. Oops, wait, sorry, 2013 will be taken up planning the company foosball tournament. Let's see...next availability would be...

Anyway, we are happy to announce that things are up and running again, at least for this moment. We make no promise that things will remain this way.

You want your home to be a place where visitors feel comfortable hanging out. It is possible, however, for visitors to get a little too comfortable, and to start mistaking your home for their own ("Ya got anything besides Miracle Whip for my sandwich?") Such appears to be the case with our front yard, which consists of 24 square feet of brick walk and approximately 672 square miles of weeds, and is frequently visited by the various neighborhood dogs.

I have noticed an alarming trend lately of these dogs relieving themselves within this 24 square feet of our property. They are not shy about doing so, and do not mind if I happen to be right there watching. The first dog, whom we shall call Old Jack, was not too old and feeble to notice that I had just cleared the weeds from one end of the brick, and promptly christened the newly cleaned area.

"That's okay," I told Old Jack's mortified owner. "At least I already cleaned that part."

Next to visit, while I was still pulling weeds, was Baxter, the Best Dog in the World. Baxter is normally very polite and would not think of using one's walk for his personal needs, but evidently having sniffed out Old Jack's presence, added his own specialty brand to the walk.

I began to suspect that there was a sign somewhere, visible only to dogs, that advertises a "Free Canine Toilet (No TP necessary)." This was confirmed sometime later when I noticed that another unknown dog, apparently not wanting to be outdone, left a considerably larger gift for us.

And so I send out a fervent plea to all the neighborhood dogs: If you have to go on our property, at least wait until the weeds grow again -- which should be about 10:17 this morning -- and aim for them. This might kill them, and I'll have an easier time pulling them up.