Two Pictures!

Jesse: This dog is so fucking classy that he needed two pictures to fully communicate his professionalism and range. Look at that face. There is no doubt in my mind that at his peak during the late fifties/early sixties this dog (let’s call him Snacks Felton) shot three hundred films a year, was given the key to several Midwestern cities and guest-starred on Leave it to Beaver 14 times. This photo shoot lasted approximately three minutes (he knows how to hit his marks) after which he ate the choicest sections of three pounds of top sirloin in the back of a stretch limo and met up with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. at the Copa. Knowing how to play the situation Snacks wasted no time peeing on Sammy's leg, causing Frank to laugh so hard he cracked the table by pounding on it. The owner brought over a delicate Keshi-tsubu bonsai to thank him, which Snacks also ate. Then he polished off 12 Old Fashioned’s, left the table without a wobble in his step and consecutively impregnated six bitches in a private helicopter slowly circling the Chrysler building.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at Houndblog, who are thankful for an internet where this is only one dog-related Thanksgiving picture besides THIS stomach-churning abomination (seriously, do an image search).

Houndblogs in the Outfield

Jesse: Possible but ultimately unacceptable directions for an entry written about this picture:

a) Russian trained suicide dog (two hundred pounds of explosives in the paper bag in his mouth) is narrowly prevented from destroying the 1957 World Series = OFFENSIVE
b) During WWII there was a baseball shortage. How did the sport respond? Playing with dogs of course! = UNBELIEVABLE
c) Legendary manager Casey Stengel ate strays he caught on the ballfield during warm-ups = CALLOUS, POTENTIAL LAWSUIT

Obviously none of these work because this picture is idiotic and the only connection between dogs and baseball is the Rapid City Retrievers AA franchise, the ugly-kids-messing-around-in-the-dirt classic The Sandlot and Marge Schott’s giant St. Bernard named Schottzie. If you’re not familiar with Marge Schott she was a horrible old racist woman who owned the Cincinnati Reds in the ’80s and ‘90s, who despite being horrible ended up representing the swan song of that crude, filthy, amazing sensibility that characterized baseball before it was swallowed up by a painfully neat wave of soft pitchers and superstar agents and thirteen dollar hot dog and Budweiser combos. Anyway, this dog laid poops in the outfield and ate children whole and basically did whatever it pleased. Then she made some positive comments about Hitler and was banned from baseball. And just like that we’ve come full circle.

Lisa: Baseball is really nice because everyone is friends, and Shawn Green and Jose Reyes and Chase Utley are all very cute young men. But the cutest and nicest of all is a dog, don't you forget that. This baseball dog won several awards for sportsmanship and friendliness and home runs.

Dog Fancy

Jesse: Now that the Google behemoth has swallowed up the Life magazine archives and made them available for all the world to see we can have a reminder of the old days when things were simple enough that an animal sitting on a couch was considered newsworthy. This picture probably caused lots of women to chatter for hours on the phone and lots of husbands to respond by locking them in the closet (this was the polite way to punish your wife in the ‘50s). Sure, this dog is cute, but its cuteness is so soullessly presented that you can’t help but envision this anesthetized life of personal handlers and Benzedrine injections and very short walks. Take all those stories you’ve heard about Judy Garland being kept docile on a steady diet of studio-furnished prescription drugs and apply them to this dog, whose life probably ended in a bathtub at the Plaza hotel with a feathery chemise and two pawfuls of Seconal.

Lisa: I still get locked in the closet sometimes but mostly this dog is great!

Rotting Dog

Jesse: Yeah sure, I'll buy the ‘every dog is cute in its own way’ thing but really, the only way this abomination is cute is by virtue of the pity provoked by its massive, all-consuming ugliness. This dog is so ugly that pregnant women of fragile constitutions miscarry at the sight of him. He is so ugly that his fleas have to wear sunglasses. So ugly that I visited this website for inspiration but none of the jokes seemed harsh enough to describe how ugly this dog was.

Now I feel bad, which is an entirely pointless reaction because the dog does not know he is ugly and even if he did it’s likely that it would not affect him one single iota. The life of a dog is not a beauty contest. Rest assured, this monstrosity is 100% as happy as he’d be if he didn’t look like the Crypt Keeper’s head the moment before it explodes.

Lisa: I have to find a new favorite cookie because Famous Amos isn't doing it for me anymore and Jesse how dare you that dog is very handsome jacobean harpy

Champions

Jesse: This woman is such a winner that she deserves a personal performance from Kenny Loggins followed by a sit-down dinner at the Outback Steakhouse of her choice. There is this brief lingering doubt that her joy will be too much for the sausage dog that she is spinning in circles around her head but the way things are going it’s obvious that even if she loses grip the dog will float slowly upward in slow motion while everyone looks temporarily horrified before flopping down in a basket full of promotional t-shirts. The Sirius Satellite Radio Every Doggie Is A Star festival only occurs once a year and despite the title only one person/dog team wins the two-year supply of puppy pads.

Topside

Jesse: Murray works hard so when the weekend rolls around he likes to struggle halfway into his favorite Hawaiian shirt, pop on some cool shades and climb up onto a dresser for some much-needed relaxation. No, of course I’m not kidding. How else would the dog get like that? Am I supposed to believe that some moron would go to the protracted effort of shoddily dressing up his animal and then hoisting him all the way on top of a dresser just to put a picture of it on the internet? Pretty unlikely. Dogs may not have minds but if there's one thing they can handle on their own it's relaxing.

South China Fleas

Jesse: Life on some of these obscure little South Pacific islands moves at such a slow place that all it takes is a guy in a suit measuring his dog on the beach to get the entire country stirred up. Mr. Kasigara decides that his house is not the appropriate location for such an event as the measurement of his favorite dog and so puts on his finest and marches down to the beach where he is followed by two thousand small black boys named Thomas in brightly colored golf shirts. Soon the fishermen draw their boats in early and goats are being roasted and people are dancing and the young boys take in all the details in preparation for the day when they can tell their grandchildren of the time when the man in the purple suit discovered that the span of his dog’s back was 27 inches.

Lots of Dogs

Jesse: "It's very important when you consider even pet security issues with dogs as there are lots and the paws, often covered in mud and sometimes other types of dirt, rear their heads and come into the house through small doors meant for them, backwards maybe with their tails swishing, the kitchens of local families under the tables without washing first and places where germs can be a danger, where—where do they go?"

(Yes this is a picture of Sarah Palin telling Alaskan viewers about lots of dogs)

Lisa: Sometimes when I'm alone in my house and I start to get worried that nobody is ever coming home again I pretend I am a newscaster and as you can probably guess all of the news stories I tell are about dogs in some way or another. Yesterday, for example, I discussed a town on the top of a mountain that recently elected a dog as its mayor. He doesn't have to wear a suit to work!