President Bush tells his dog to stop leaking secret war plans to the press...

A man sees a sign in front of a house "Talking Dog for Sale." He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the back yard. The guy goes into the back yard and sees a mutt sitting there. "You talk?" he asks. "Yep," the mutt replies. "So, what's your story?" The mutt looks up and says "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leader, cause no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running. The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired." The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog. The owner says "Ten dollars." The guy says he'll buy him but asks the owner, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him?" The owner replies, "He's such a liar." [from Phil Ackley's Radio Thingumabob]

"The Texas Narcotics Officers Association has awarded El Paso County Deputy Louis Almonte and his narcotic detector dog, Blackjack, as Narcotic Detector Dog Team of the Year... "I'm humbled by the recognition," Almonte said..." Narcotic Detector Dog Team of the Year TX  [El Paso Times]

How to take the bite out of the mail delivery and not the postman...  Dog vs. postal carrier: [Visalia Times-Delt] Related Dog Bite Prevention, Postal Worker loses nose to dog, FY 2001 Total Recordable Dog Bite Accidents by Postal Service

We can't pamper our dogs enough, it seems... GA "Now, just like millions of people, dogs can snuggle into a Simmons Beautyrest every night, right down to the individually covered coils..."  "John Shepard, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Sleep Disorders Center, surveyed 300 patients in 2001 and found that 22 percent let their pets sleep with them. Of those, more than half said their pets disrupted their sleep every night..." "For more information, call Pet Goods at 1-800475-1377 or go to www.simmonspetcare.com or petgoodsmfg.com. The beds are available for 25 percent off retail if bought directly from Pet Goods..."  Simmons Beauty Rest bed for your dog(s)  [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

(Our dog has his own Nikon magnetic pet ped [no, we don't sell Nikon; we just pamper our dog.]) Last night, he got us up repeatedly. He was too itchy to sleep, so naturally he came over to my side of the bed and pawed and cried until I got up. His motto is "get the humans up if you can't sleep." We bathed him on Saturday and we didn't do the best job of rinsing out the conditioner or shampoo. He has the thickest coat in the world: I spent 3 hours hand-blow drying him and he still wasn't dry when I stopped.... looks like we'll have to wash and rinse and rinse and rinse and blow dry him again. Chows are high maintenance dogs (but worth it).

Firefighters find their dog FL "Bogie the dog ran away from fire station No. 2 in Miami Thursday after he was spooked. Firefighters used fire trucks to look for him and posted a reward..." After getting Bogie back, the relieved firefighters gave him a few days off... [WPLG]

No Charges For Owner Of Snake That Ate Dog [WCMH, OH] Related: Python eats dog Animal attack files: news reports

Here's why you don't want to leave your dog unattended outside: Dog set on fire in Over-the-Rhine "Police said that a dog chained to a utility pole and set on fire might have been a reject from an illegal dogfighting operation. The dog was still breathing when it was found on Tuesday in Over-the- Rhine but died from the injuries..." [Cincinnati Post, OH]

Related: Police: Penn. Man frames dog for fire A man framed his dog for a house fire so that he could collect the insurance and pay off his debts. He singed his rottweiller-husky's tail and then set fire to the curtains with a candle.... Dog, once doused with gas and set ablaze, recovers TX "Daisy, the dog that had been doused with gasoline and set on fire by a Fort Worth man, was released to a foster home Wednesday after almost three months in a local animal hospital."

Some doggone words to live by...  "Southern country folk know what it means to have a three-dog night and that if it gets any colder, you may have to pull yet another dog up on the bed to keep warm. Northerners should be warned a good dog is worth its weight in gold and that disputes over dogs and property lines can be deadly..." [More Southernisms... Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal]

"Always do you best, and even if things don't turn out as you expect, at least you know you did your best.." [Worker of year masters many jobs Bedford Times Mail]

NE "Teasing a dog can get you more than a nasty bite. A 21-year-old man ended up in jail Friday when he messed with the wrong canine..." [Man jailed for barking at dog, WSET, VA] Related: Barking Dad lands in jail ... "The dad tried to distract his quarreling kids by pretending he was a dog but his barking woke up the neighbors. His crime? "the defendant had barked in a public place in the middle of the night." How loud can a man bark anyway?..." ... Portland man arrested after barking at dog. ME A man who barked at a police dog inside a parked patrol car was detained and ... [AP Press, Portland, Maine] ... (If you want to get arrested, barking at a police dog seems a sure fire way to do it...]

"Hitler, a vegetarian with soft spot for animals" but  not people  "If Britain bans hunting with hounds, it will follow the pioneering efforts of Adolf Hitler. The dictator who sent millions of Jews to the gas chambers banned fox-hunting in Nazi Germany because he considered the use of hounds to kill other animals 'unsporting'... There was a belief that if you put an animal through unnecessary torture you were injuring the feelings of the German nation... " Hitler and Herman Goering, his infamous Air Marshal, both passionately believed in protecting animals, while at the same time bent on mass genocide and eradication of modern civilization's very cornerstone -- that all humans are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty, freedom and happiness... An article by Tony Paterson from Berlin and David Harrison from London gives us a glimse into the twisted 'ethics' of the Nazi terror regime... [Hunting with hounds verboten in Germany, The Age, Australia]