The Poodle (and Dog) Blog

The Catch-it—is this great for dog walks…or not?

Three years ago we covered the Super Catcher, a product developed in Taiwan. Before the dog walk, a series of straps and buckles go on the dog in 26 (yes!) steps to hold a bucket.

The bucket goes under the dog’s butt (presumably he doesn’t notice it) and catches the  poop before it reaches the ground.

It didn’t seem to catch on in my neighborhood.

 

Introducing: The Catch-it 

Julie Pilas, 59, owner of a pet supply store, has a new idea for dealing with the problem.  The  Catch-it is designed to catch the poop before it hits the ground.

“You will not see, smell, or touch the pet’s waste,” according to the website.

She has a patent on the Catch-it which consists of a disposable bag attached to the end of a long handle. A lever opens and closes the bag. There is even a flashlight for use at night.

- How do you use the Catch-it? As the dog begins to take the stance to eliminate you simply hit the lever to open the bag, place the bottom of the Catch-it under the pet and after the pet's waste drops into the bag hit the lever again to close it.

She is testing the first prototypes, but is currently taking orders on her website. They are selling for $30.

I would think exact timing and skillful maneuvering is of the essence. Walking multiple dogs would present some real challenges.

And presumably the dogs won’t mind that you’re goosing them with a long pole.

Is the Catch-it what you have been waiting for?

Abandoned dogs in abandoned houses—can’t we protect them?

There are more and more stories of dogs left behind when owners can’t pay the mortgage, move away, or go to jail. Animal control officers are subject to trespassing charges if they break into the home to release the dogs.

As many silly laws that are passed today, it seems that something might be done to prevent the suffering of dogs that are forced to live in their own waste and starve while people dither about how unfortunate they are.

The police can break into a home if a human life is in danger. Do we have to continue to treat dogs as property when their lives are in danger?

In the meantime where are the vandals when they are needed?

One well placed brick and, oops—who let the dogs out?

Puppy takes medicine

Saying "It's good for you" is probably a waste of time.
He barely has his eyes open but he knows how to express an opinion.
Maybe he needs a spoonful of sugar.

Thanks to Sam

Internet Explorer is evil

OK, I know that some most of you use it as your default browser, and you probably love it.

It's just that IE and I seem to have a seriously contentious personality conflict.

Years ago when I got my first computer I used Netscape with no problems. Then I bought a new computer with IE bundled in and that’s when the trouble started.

We didn’t seem to hit it off from the start. I don’t want to relive all the frustrations I had using it, but the worst was when it would on its own open windows rapidly, 10-20-30 or more, and then I would have to close them individually.

At one point I upgraded and that was worse. The new version was arrogant. It fought all the software and functioned at its convenience. After talking to five support people in three different countries, I uninstalled it and went back to "the devil I knew" as they say.

Finally I took everyone’s advice and switched to Firefox. To me this is how a browser is supposed to be: competent, logical and low maintenance; great spell check; remembers passwords and usernames accurately; fast, quiet updates. Life was good.

Until… Friday when I let IE rear its surly presence on my computer.

Here’s how it happened:

I built a simple post (in FF as always) with a code for a video of a big dog, a little kitten and just a few words.

Then a reader commented that she could not open the first one.

First one? There is only one.

Figuring she had IE, I opened it and for reasons known only to IE, it showed a ghost square at the top. Since I couldn’t delete the ghost, I decided just to quickly rebuild the post in IE.

Big mistake.

When I published it, the entire sidebar was gone. Total fricken white space down the right side of the page.

Noooooooo!

I deleted the post and rebuilt it in FF, but again when I published it…no sidebar!! IE had eaten my sidebar.

Aaaagh!

When I deleted the post, once again the sidebar reappeared.

Having to rebuild the sidebar if I ever wanted to write a new post sent me into a panic.

It’s like IE had been lurking down in the tray just waiting for the opportunity to wreak revenge and cause havoc with my life. 

I’m not sure what I did to get the sidebar back. I tried different things, but sometimes if you just leave the room and pretend not to notice them, machines, appliances and software will start working properly again.

Internet Explorer—the evil basement cat of software.

More than a feeling

Here’s your daily dose of puppy breath—
guaranteed to lower your stress level, blood pressure and
start the smiles.

Thanks to Jimmy

Old Yeller dies, Billy Budd dies, and Rosebud is a sled

This all started when my daughter was taking a class in American Literature and announced that they were going to be reading Billy Budd, one of my favorite works.

The next afternoon she stormed into the house.

“BILLY BUDD DIES? BILLY BUDD DIES?
WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME BILLY BUDD DIES?”

I was so sorry. I had no defense. What could I say -- I thought it might be different this time?

It seems that before the class had finished reading Billy Budd, the professor’s lecture had given away the ending. And I had not warned her. So I tried not to repeat the Billy Budd mistake and the whole family joined the spirit.

Through the years we came up with these:

Travis shoots Old Yeller

Rosebud is a sled

The murderer on the Orient Express was…all of them

Darth Vader is Luke’s father

Tony Perkins is his own mother

The narrator killed Roger Ackroyd 

Buck becomes leader of a wolf pack

Beth dies

Mandolay burns down

Braveheart dies

John Wayne (not Jimmy Stewart) shot Liberty Valance

Madame Bovary drinks poison

Catherine dies in childbirth-Frederick walks out in the rain

Boo Radley saves Scout’s life

Sonny is shot at the toll booth

Michael becomes Godfather

Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father 

The Gladiator dies

Elizabeth marries Darcy

Bruce Willis is a dead person

Rhett leaves Scarlett

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Polonius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes and Hamlet die

Jack drowns

My precocious granddaughter announced recently that she is reading Of Mice and Men.

Lennie kills Curly’s wife and George shoots Lennie.

Old habits die hard.

Poodles Playing Piano

And now for a short musical interlude. They probably won’t make it to Carnegie Hall, but they sure have a lot of enthusiasm.

I wonder if they’ve had lessons or are the just naturals?

Do dogs have guardian angels?

Sometimes it really seems that way...

A couple from Oregon, Shauna McHugh and Tobias Swanson, stopped at a scenic overlook at Crater Lake National Park.

When they got out of their Volkswagen Passat, they forgot to put on the emergency brake.

With McHugh’s dog, Haley, still in the car, it rolled backward across the parking lot for approximately 100 feet and then plunged over the brink of the caldera.

As the car tumbled down the abyss, Haley, a Dingo-Akita mix, jumped, fell, or was plucked by her guardian angel-dog out of the open sunroof. It took her around 15 minutes to make her way approximately 600 feet to the top of the slope to rejoin her owner.

The car, however, broke apart as it plunged 1,100 feet down to the lake, scattering parts of the engine, transmission, chassis, drive train, and personal belongings all along the rocky wall.

Although dog and humans are safe, cleaning up the debris is going to be a massive job for park workers. The slope is long and steep, covered with loose rock. Snow begins to accumulate in October which would make removal difficult and the melting snow in the spring could carry contaminants from the wreck into the pristine lake.

Plans are being made to use a helicopter to remove the larger pieces followed by climbers rappelling over the side to remove the remaining debris.

Park officials are reminding people to set their emergency brakes, but the last time a car crashed down into the lake was October, 1922. The story

Dog thrown off bridge gets a big fan club

A Texas man apparently doesn’t understand the ages old pact between prehistoric man and early dog that involved the dog’s right, even obligation, to eat the garbage left by humans.

Instead Shane Rushing, 43, tossed the 6-month-old puppy off a bridge 50 feet into the water because he was tired of the dog getting into the trash. It isn't known if he had tried other means of solving the problem.

A witness called the police and Rushing was arrested. Animal Control Officer Tammy Bishop found the dog on a small rocky island in the middle of the river, probably wondering what the impromptu swim was all about.

The veterinarian who treated and released him said the not so little white puppy is possibly a Great Pyrenees mix.

The police department has received 70 calls from people wanting to adopt him, hopefully people with more working brain cells than Shane Rushing. Rushing has been charged with animal cruelty.

The dog has been temporarily named Lucky which is probably a snappier name than Deservedly Bitter. The story

You won't believe the new dogs in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records

The new Guinness Book is out.
Two new dog record holders are included.

Puggy, a male Pekinese from Texas, has the world’s longest tongue on a dog. The 4.5 inch tongue was officially measured at an animal clinic. Puggy was abandoned as a puppy probably because of his strange appearance, but he became a beloved family dog belonging  to Becky Stanford. 

The record for the fastest time for a dog to pop 100 balloons belongs to a California dog Anastasia, a hyperactive Jack Russell Terrier. (Is that redundant?) It took her only 44.49 seconds to dispatch the offending 100 spheres.

As expected George from Arizona beat out Titus, both Great Danes, for World’s Tallest Dog, and Boo Boo from Kentucky retained his title from last year as the World’s Smallest Dog.

George missed out last year because his owner didn’t get his paper work turned in on time.

George weighs 245 pounds and stands 7 feet 3 inches. He eats 110 pounds of food a day. Boo Boo, a four-year-old long haired Chihuahua, stands 4 inches tall and weighs 24 ounces. She eats her dog food from a teaspoon.

Guinness considers over 50,000 contenders and over 80% are rejected.

Included in this year's book are the world’s longest snake and the world’s smallest cow.

Also the most weight pulled by a pair of nipples. Who knew that was a competition?