The ballad of Zoey Wilson who was suspended today from DS

Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in.

You all know how protective I am of our family. Especially those of the Yorkshire variety. Our friend Zoey Wilson may not be our most active pup. She spend lots of time with the humans on Facebook and playing in the paper Princess' castle. I warned her of the dangers of the castle but you know kids.

Well Zoey entered a cutest pup contest. Now being a Yorkie, even the most hideous looking Yorkie, should be enough to carry a pup to first place in such a challenge. I know I may be a little prejudice for the breed, but seriously, our two main attributes are our cuteness, our barking, and out fanatical devotion to our Mom. That's three, our three main attributes are our cuteness, our barking, our burrowing, and our fanatical devotion to our Mom.....

OK, enough of that. Got to get back on track. Zoey posted fliers in the castle asking her friends to vote for her in The Cutest Dog contest. Now granted, I have been barred from the castle for almost a year and a half. But if my memory serves me well, about half the postings in the castle were requests to give money for this or vote for me for that.

Suddenly, poor little Zoey turned around, and there was the Paper Princess, with her paw extended suspending Zoe from the castle. I'm telling you the Princess is anti-Yorkdite.

So Zoey gets suspended for doing what every other dog has been doing for years which brings us to a segment we like to call "Really with Foley and Pocket."

Really Levi, you're suspending Zoey for asking for votes in a cutest pet contest? Really? You just sent out e-mail to former members asking them to come back and now you're going to suspend a loyal member? Really? You suspend a member linking to another site which is what social networking is all about? Really? Is it true the story of how you created DS coming out this weekend called the Social Disease? Really? Should we prepare ourselves for another poorly spelled lame excuse for your inexcusable actions? Really?

Poor Zoey has fallen into second place in the contest, more than 100 points behind. If I was a suspicious dog, which I am, I would believe that maybe this other dog was friends with Levi. But I don't think that's true. Who would be friends with Levi?

It's still a long shot, but if you believe in Freedom to Bark, and would like to show Levi the Paper Princess that you can't thwart the will of the people, then click this link hereand give Zoey a vote. You have to do it by midnight, and there are a lot of votes to make up, but we can try

Not only is it a worthy vote for a very cute dog, but it gives us a chance to look up at the castle, shake our butts, and say Boo-lah-lah

Dulce is our September 26, 2010 pup of the week

We are dogs. We used to have several jobs across the world: herding sheep; protecting the homestead; ferreting out critters. But as we have evolved, for the most part, our jobs have been whittled down to one. Protecting Mom.

But the sad fact is there are so many threats to our Moms in the world that we can't protect them from everything: problems at work, while traveling, bad men on the street, illness, money problems. But we like to think we can protect our Mommies at home. Even the tiniest dogs like Pocket and me believe if any evil walks in the door we will bite it backwards. But even at home there are heartbreaks we can't protect them from.

This week Dulce's Mom had to break the sad news to her. She, and Dulce's Daddy, even though they were in love when Dulce first anxiously strolled through their front door, had, as humans do, grown apart, until it became too difficult for them to live together. This is something that is very hard for us pups to understand. There are days I could absolutely kill Pocket. In fact there are days I plan it out, wait for the right moment, and attack. But we don't leave one another. We wouldn't think of it. OK, I think about it a lot, but us dogs have a very large loyalty gene, and we just can't do it.

But human relationships are based on more than a good whiff of a butt and snuggle compatibility. My Mommy had a different partner before Daddy. She even had a litter of my human brother and sisters with him. But after 20 years they decided to move apart and now Mommy is with Daddy, and we're here, and she's never been happier. (He used to stop by when our human brother lived here. He was big, hairy, sweaty and balding. If Mommy had stayed with him I don't know if I would have laid in bed with him. He sheds.)

Our good friend Dulce is in for a world of confusion and hurt. There is nothing worse then when our safe, comfortable household undergoes a traumatic upheaval. Pocket and I don't like when there is any yelling in our house. We hide under the bed. Unfortunately, with Barge at the bridge, Dulce has no one to hide with. He's scared, his Mom's scared, and what they need is a Brigade. Luckily they have one. It's time to let them now they are not alone. We are here for them, all they need to do is turn on the computer and give us a bark.

See his is to Dulce and his Mom, our Pup and Mom of the week.

Where Pocket and I take things into our own paws

You all know the great video: The one where Brody is watching Brady playing with his toys and he is helpless to do anything, the urge to take them in his big mouth and squeak, squeak, squeak them almost overpowering him. Well that's how Mommy and Daddy were about that retirement community that they had planned to move into. Even though it was clearly spelled out that you could only have one pup there Mommy and Daddy kept driving through checking out modular homes. Just like Brody playing with the toys they couldn't stop looking at the houses hoping that one of them would drop into their drooling mouths.

I knew it meant a lot to Mommy and Daddy to live three, it is close by, they used to walk my sister dog Blake there when they lived in a neighborhood across the street, and Pocket and I have strutted our stuff their too. So, in my role as their unwanted Attorney, I decided to take my Associate Dr Pocket and get my Mommy and Daddy the modular home of their dreams before God send a tornado to wipe it out.

We knew the way since we had been taken there so many times on walks. We marched right into the management offices and climbed on the chairs. A woman with thick glasses looked down at us. "Are one of you over 55?" she asked sucking on a cigarette. "We only sell if one of the buyers is over 55."

"I think Foley is over 55 in dog years," Pocket said. I growled and snapped at her.

"We are not here for us, we are here for my Mommy, and believe me she is over 55. I think she's a hundred or something. And she would like to buy one of these cardboard shacks with windows. Tanner knows why she wants to but she does. But your stupid, pupcist rules state you can only have one pet. My associate and I are ready to file suit against you if you block Mommy from buying the house because she has two dogs, or a dog and a well-groomed rat, we really don't know what she is," I said nodding towards Pocket.

"Oh, we wouldn't have a problem with two little puppies like you moving in, combined you're barely one dog."

Excuse me? Pocket and I barely one dog? She won't have a problem? I had filed papers. I had prepared briefs, ironed and folded them. I had worked on my opening, closing and middling and she was not only caving but she was going to suggest that I was just like Pocket? Me? Who has read the Iliad in the original Latin? Who made the final four of the third season of Top Chef? Who was on the short list for the Supreme Court? Me? Like Pocket Pissy pants. Oh I beg to differ and for treats.

"We are most certainly two different dogs!" I said. "We may be the same breed, but I say for you to suggest that we are alike just because of that, why, it's like saying all Italians are alike, or all Polish people are alike. It is just backwards 19th century thinking."

"Oh you are both cuties," she said. "Come up here on the desk sweety."

"I will not!" I said.

But there went Pocket, the little tart, climbing up on the desk, laying on her back, and spreading her legs. I had insisted we wouldn't put out the spread unless things were going badly, but they were going great, and there was Pocket, just giving it away.

She began to scratch Pocket's tummy and Pocket began to pant and shake her leg. Oh my gosh, get a room. "You two are so sweet, I don't know how to tell you apart." She looked at me. "You know I think I could help your Mommy get a place if you let me give you a belly rub too," she said.

"Oh for the love of Tanner," I thought. The things pretty dogs do for their Moms. I rolled on to my back and let her pet me fo r5 minutes. Then I rolled off the desk. She lit a cigarette. .

"Thanks honey," she said. "Can't wait to see you strutting your stuff around here."

I hoped I never saw her again. Before I left I checked the name plate on her desk. Ms. Edy. Hmmmm. That name seemed familiar.

We ran home and waited for Mommy. When she came we told her we had made her dreams come. (Well first we ran around in circles, barked, cried and begged to be picked up. We do that every day. We rehearse it. It's tight.)

So Mommy's dream of living in a home that can be blown down the street by a stiff wind was done. She was very happy. But then she told me someone had to buy our house first. Who wants to buy a house with Franks'n'Beans on one side and the State Mental Hospital on the other?

Holy heck, how many belly rubs am I going to have to submit to before we can move?

Baron also known as Bear is our September 19, 2010 pup of the week

One thing us dogs can agree on, we do not like to be pricked. Pricked, prodded, probed, pinched, punched: we try to avoid all of these activities. But our Pup of the Week, Baron, also known as Bear, is getting pricked for all of us,

Our poor Bear has developed some mobility problems with the onset of his Senior years. It's sad for Mommies to see us when we're no longer kids, jumping, running, humping (OK maybe not that one.) Most dogtors say there isn't much they can do about it. You can't stop time.

But not Bear's Mom and not her Dogtor. They came up with a brilliant idea to use an Asian method of healing for our boy. When I first heard of it I was scared to death for him. All I could remember was the old episodes of M*A*S*H I was made to watch and how the people joked about the Asians eating dog.

But Daddy told me they don't do that. Anymore. (Anymore?) He also told me that Mommy used to go the an Acupuncturist. I didn't believe that for a second. I have been sleeping with them for ten years and Mommy doesn't like to be probed, prodded, or pricked by anyone.

I asked Mommy and she said it was true, but it hadn't given her the relief from the back pain she had hoped. But she told me if it was helping Bear then I shouldn't judge. But gosh, that's what I do best.

So I checked in on Bear and he told me he wasn't afraid of those needles at all. He said his Mommy had promised that it would help him walk better and he trusted her with his life. So he didn't have a second of fear facing the needles.

I admire that attitude. I love my Mommy, but, when she puts me up there to have my anal glands squeezed I'm thinking she's putting me in the hands of someone who is going to pinch my butt hard.

Bear is doing this so he can walk again. He has been so brave in facing his mobility issues. He believed he would walk again, his Mom believed he would walk again, and they would never give up that belief. Plus they have proven to all of us skeptics, who might believe that acupuncture on a pup was silly, that, not only is it sensible, but someday his example may cure what ever ailments of being a Senior dog are thrust upon us.

So here is to Bear, our Pup of the Week: The dog who said "I have a dream;" the dog who said "as God as my witness I will walk again;" the dog who said "Stick me baby, I'm man enough to take it," the dog who said "I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die."

Here's to Bear: The pup we all want to be when we grow up

Over the Wall (Part Two) "Good Kitties"

I watched Pocket heading to the wall on the other side of the street and I knew she didn't pay attention when she crossed the road. I ran up to her, took her by the paw and helped her across the road.

As many of you have commented Pocket and I are too tiny to scale a wall. "We could just go around it," Pocket said. We just went around it.

And where did we emerge? Was it on the island with Ben and Hurley? In the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz? To some, but to us it was just the state mental institution.

Now don't go jumping to conclusions. The kitty hadn't gone crazy. The kitty had gone wild.

At the State Mental Institution they were called feral cats. These are bad cats. The kind of cats who knock over cigarette trucks and sell the cartons on the cheap . The kind that run shine out of the back of the old maintenance building. The kind that don't get spade. The kind that stay in heat so long the eventually go poof in an orange ball of flame on a hot summer day. The kind that call themselves "Good Kitties" like " this is Snowball, she's a good kitty." The kind no Yorike goes near.

But Pocket is not just any Yorkie. She's nuts. The maintenance men, long ago, guys with names like Sid and Ike, began leaving food and water for the stray cats on the site, in an old maintenance shed. Soon the maintenance men abandoned that shed. But the kitties did not. And although all those old maintenance men were long gone, someone still feeds those kitties. Some told tale of the ghost of Sid filling the kitties' bowls every morning. Then again this is the state mental institution so let's not get carried away.

Pocket saw two kitties, leaning up against the old maintenance shed, smoking Lucky Strikes, and spinning a mouse on a rotisseree over a fire. I shouted at her to wait but she began to run towards them. Really? What is it with her and all the running? She ran right up to the cats. She asked if she could go inside and look for a friend. "I could be your friend, Buttercup," one of the kitty toughs said. "But you're not white and gray," Pocket answered.

I walked up to them and said I wanted to go in. They asked me what the password was. "Swordfish," I answered. They stepped aside.

"How did you know that?" Pocket asked.

"The password is always swordfish," I said.

"Well what 's the point of that?" she asked.

"Look Pocket, we're in, stop over analyzing this to death."

We entered the room. There were several playing pool. Some were licking catnip right off the bar. Several others were enjoying their own private parts. I know, we all do it, but in public? Unprofessional. Pocket was ignoring it all; She saw the brown and white kitty being given a big bowl of milk by two rough looking kitties and hurried over to her.

Fearless, or senseless, Pocket ran right up to the kitty and told her that her Mommy missed her and she had to return home.

"Buzz off hairball," one of the older cats said. "This here is our prag, and you are getting in way over your head."

"Yeah," the kitty said. "You go back and tell my Mommy I'm never coming back. I'm sick off her stupid rules. Don't get on the couch. Pee in the litter box. Stay off the bed.. I don't like rules."

I sauntered next to Pocket. "Maybe we should leave her alone. Her Mom seems like a bitch." But Pocket insisted that the kitty belonged with it's Mom.

A fat cat wandered over and told us it would be best if we leave, but Pocket insisted the kitty come with us. Then I saw one cat who had been eyeballing me. He walked over, spit some hair out at my paws and told me he remembered me. "Five years ago you chased me up a tree and I got stuck there for a week. The fire department had to come to rescue me. I was humiliated. And now you dare to show your face in here."

"That wasn't me," I said. "I had a sister who looked like me. Bad dog."

"No that was you Foley," Pocket said. "I remember you telling me about it and laughing."

"I think it's time you were chased up a tree," he said and the kitties surrounded us.

We were in deep vick now. I knew we shouldn't have gone over the wall. Then we heard the squawking. The Canadian Geese Police had arrived.

I told Pocket to head for the door but she grabbed the kitty in her mouth. We ran for the door, got outside with the scrambling cats and pecking police, broke away from them, went around the wall, and returned the kitty home. We brought the kitty in the house and told the woman to let the kitty on the couch, the bed, and to let her pee where she wanted. "But this isn't even my kitty!' she said.

"It sure as shit is now!" I yelled.

Pocket and I ran hard towards our doggy door and hit it hard before we realized we didn't have one. Ouch. We climbed in through the window.

We both sat down on the couch breathing hard. Pocket looked at me. "There's one thing I don 't understand," she said. "Why were the Canadian Geese police?" she asked.

I put my paw on her shoulder. "Because sometimes Pocket you just need to find your way out of your blog."

Over the Wall (Part One)

Today, when Pocket and I went to get the mail, only to find out that
we had none (sigh) we saw a hand written note taped to the community
board. "Last Cat: If found return to Unit 20."

I thought of Boots and his adventures, and wondered if the cat had
jumped on my windowsill and copied my download codes. Then I studied
the note carefully. "Lost Cat." Could they have been any more vague?
Perhaps: "Missing Mammal" or "Misplaced Carbon Based Unit." Could
they post a picture of the kitty? Or at least a description?

Pocket doesn't scrutinize events the way I do. She just wanted to
find the kitty and reunite it with its Mom. "But Pocket, we don't
know which kitty it is!" I pleaded.

But you can't talk to a dog with a diaper on her butt, and she was
off. A few minutes later she returned with a baby chipmunk.

"That's not a cat," I said folding my paws across my chest.

"Vit vight vee," Pocket said holding the chipmunk in her mouth. The
chipmunk, meanwhile, was professing her innocence, stating that while
she may have moved the squirrels nuts, she did not lick them.

Pocket went running to the woman's door. I followed. Pocket scratched
on it until she answered. "I found your kitty," Pocket said as she
dropped it on the ground.

"That's a chipmunk," the woman said.

"Oh," Pocket said scratching her head. "Sorry, you can go," Pocket
said, nosing the chipmunk like she does the ball when she wants
someone to throw it.

The chipmunk took several steps away, stopped, and shook her butt at
Pocket. I growled at the brash rodent. Only I get to butt shake
Pocket.

"We'd like to help you find your kitty," I said. "Maybe you can give
us a description, or give us something to smell."

"You two aren't scent dogs," the woman said.

"You have never stood down wind from Pocket," I told her. I asked her
for a picture and she said she didn't have one. My gosh, was this cat
her pet or was she just renting her a room? I asked for a
description.

"She's white and gray," the woman said. It was like saying she lost
an old white man in Congress. I told the woman I would keep my eyes
open. I then walked away, ready to climb on my blanket and nap
through the day.

But at three years of age I must admit Pocket has learned. She cut me
off. "You know where the kitty is," Pocket said.

"Leave it alone Pocket, we don't need to get involved," I said.

"No, it's like Boots, we need to save this kitty like Boots was saved.
And you know where the kitty went, she went over the wall."

"Listen to me Pocket, we have this place on the market, we could move
soon, and then we would never have to worry about what's on the other
side of the wall again," I said.

She turned. "I'm going. I'm going over the wall to save the kitty."

"No Pocket, no, not over the wall." But she didn't listen. She
walked towards the wall. I couldn't let her go alone. But I couldn't
go over the wall again either.

I knew what I had to do.

To be continued

Our September 12, 2010 Pup of the Week is (Egads!) a Kitty named Boots

Pocket and I are exploring what went wrong with the system this week. We ran the numbers again and again. We recalculated the machine. We even paid Steven Jobs to check every aspect of our operating system. But the results were irrefutable. For the first time in Tanner Brigade history our Pup of the Week is....I can't say it.....a cat.

Not that Boots didn't have an amazing week. If she was a dog, this wouldn't have been a contest at all. You see two weeks ago Boots just disappeared. Now I don't know how this happened. It certainly had nothing to do with me sending the "Download yourself" codes to Savannah and having Boots intercept them and download herself. Nope, that didn't happen.

The first place Boots went was Chile. She found a little hole in the ground. She carried in her teeth a small cable connected to a camera. She used her heightened sense of kittiness to find the trapped minors and establish communications.

From there she went to Florida. For those of you who don't know Boots is a big Duran Duran fan. So is a preacher down in those parts named Terry Jones. Little known fact: Pastor Jones has many rare Duran Duran CD's. Boots asked the Pastor to burn some Duran for her. Not understanding kitty speak the Pastor misinterpreted, and boy was there trouble.

Perhaps it would have been better, during Boots trip to lower Manhattan,if she hadn't announced what a lovely site it would be for a mosque, but there is no proof that she even knows what mosque means. OK, so, on her night out with Paris Hilton, she should not have asked her to slip something into her who-who because Boots has priors and could be facing hard time and poor innocent Paris got arrested. We must all admit that her stint as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's speechwriter may not have been the field she is most qualified for. The same for her writing Al Pacino's acceptance speech at the Emmys.

Finally after traveling the world, doings lots of good, and getting into some trouble, Boots was sitting in a Starbuck enjoying a Latte when she saw on her laptop that her Mommy was missing her. She knew it was time to go home and downloaded herself (I swear I don't know how) to her Mommy's backyard where she just sauntered in like nothing had happened.

So Boots you have not been awarded Kitty of the Week for everything you did while you were traveling, but that you did the most important thing, returned home to the family that loved you, which is the most important work a pet can do.

Please be advised, even if you are our first Kitty Pup of the Week, if you ever pull a stunt like this again, and scare your Mommy, we will strip you of this honor and give it to Pocket because she does silly things every week.