Off the Mark by Mark Parisi for March 02, 2021

Fido needs to go on a diet!!!

Nice doggie.

It takes a lot of years for them to accept that you are, in fact, going to return and not simply leave them there. But then, by Dog, you had dang well better come home every day. Because if you don’t, and they end up in a shelter or kennel, they just give up and die.

That was nice.

The love of a dog is priceless!

If any of you are wondering where the erroneous idea that one block of human time equals seven blocks of dog time, it all took off with this commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHUMaKWgfS0

The first ten seconds of that 45-year-old commercial locked in the idea that 1 year of dog age was the same as seven years for a human.

Many of us are familiar with Greyfriars Bobby—the Skye Terrier in Edinburgh made famous by Eleanor Atkinson and Walt Disney. When I was young, an elderly neighbor had a big dog named Sam. They went everywhere together. My mom said Sam was a ‘one master’ dog. When the man died, Black Sam followed the ambulance to the mortuary and stayed there until the funeral. Then he followed the casket to the cemetery and stayed there. My mom and I would take him food and water every day. It was several months before mom could entice him into the car and take him back to his home. But he wouldn’t eat or stay. We would find him in the cemetery, take him home and he would return to the cemetery at the first opportunity. Eventually, Sam died and my mom had him cremated (something not normally done back then) and scattered his ashes on the grave.

attention hound

“Can’t buy me love. No no no, noooo!”

For a moment, I thought that was a handgun on the floor next to him.

That was my sis’s old kitty boss Zoe. If sis so much as stepped outside to get the mail, she’d get a load of what for, five, & maybe 6 & 7 from Zoe!

The cat version: “When the heck did you get back? I did not notice you were even gone.” I am a cat and dog person though, just saying.

♫ If you leave me now…♫

Dogs are such a blessing.

Just be thankful they didn’t take advice of Beagle Cop – https://www.gocomics.com/jim-benton-cartoons/2015/03/08

And when you are gone for a day, it is like a week to a dog.

It’s true. I can’t even go out to pick up the mail, right outside the front door. But it beats the indifference of the cat.