Pocket's not a bad dog? Is she?

I went to the groomers on Saturday. I had so much fun there. We played avoid the clippers, splash the bath, wiggle under the dryer. I love the groomers. But I love it more when I hear my Mommy and Daddy come in. I couldn’t wait until the pretty lady got the cage door open. I leapt out into her arms and began to do the push off so I could get to Mommy. The pretty girl had me in one arm and the docile Foley in the other and when she got to my Mommy she handed me over and said: “This ones so bad.”

So bad? Who? Me?

I’m not bad? Am I?

I’m not saying I’m perfect. No pup is. But bad? I know I bark a lot when Mommy or Daddy gets me out of the crate when they get home. They do all the things the people trainers say. They don’t act excited, they don’t even really talk to me. But all the way down stairs, while I am getting leashed up, going out the door, and even peeing, I’m barking my little head off. But that’s not bad. Is it?

And I totally validated the Iranian election too early. I had never counted an election before. I did a few provinces, thought I saw a trend, threw out the rest of the ballots and called it a day. My fault. Totally. But does that make me bad?

I don’t do real good with commands either. I don’t “shush” real good or pay attention to “quiet” or even the harder edged “shut up!” not when I’m chasing my green ball or imagining that I see something outside. There is one command that does quiet me. It usually comes from Daddy. It’s one word. It’s short. It’s easy to remember. It’s f**k. Now that gets my attention. I wish that was my name. It sounds like what Batman would call his dog. “Come here F**k the Joker has poisoned the water supply.” But making my Daddy call me that doesn’t make me bad does it? He doesn’t just say it to me. He yells it at the TV a lot especially when those Red Stocking are playing. Sometimes I get jealous because F**k is my word.

I probably mishandled the entire Universal Health Care thing. I think I wrote it well but didn’t present it properly. I mis-read the public mood, admittedly. But that doesn’t make me a bad dog.

The peeing and pooping? I know that’s a problem. The other day my Mommy let me out of my crate and Daddy said “just let her run down stairs to me.” Mommy knew it was a bad idea but she let me anyway and I left a trail of pee all the way down the stairs. (At least I could find my way back.) We all decided that, of course, this was not my fault but Daddy’s. But that doesn’t make him a bad Daddy, or me a bad dog.

My plan for Government-established central banks that artificially lowered interest rates by increasing the supply of money (and thus the funds banks have available to lend) through the banking system was a mistake. This was supposed to stimulate the economy. What it did was mislead investors into embarking on an investment boom that the artificially low rates seemed to validate but that in fact could not be sustained under existing economic conditions. Investments that would have correctly been assessed as unprofitable were falsely appraised as profitable, and over time the result was the squandering of countless resources in lines of investment that should never have been begun. My fault, true, but it doesn’t make me bad.

My problems outside are annoying, but not bad. The zig-zagging; the sudden stops and starts; the prolonged sniffing; the barking at anything that moves causing the rest of the neighborhood dogs to bark; the waiting to pee until I’m on a neighbor’s walkway; the holding my poo until I get back inside the house; the running up to my human neighbors and then turning tail and running when they go to pet me; my ongoing fued with the sinister Chihuaha: I don’t think any of these are the definition of bad.

My agreement with LT to steal your doggy pictures off our site and put them on his site to fool his advertisers into think there are more members then their actually are, was disgusting, immoral, unethical and probably illegal but not the actions of what someone would call a “bad dog.”

My insistence that my Tanner Brigade bandana is a chew toy, and how, when I’m wearing it, I roll on the ground until it is off then chew on the ends, or, when I am not wearing it, how I stand on my back legs, use my claws to open the bottom desk drawer, and pull out the bandana to chew on it is disrespectful and a blatant breaking of the rules, but not bad. Was it?

Although inventing the term “thread closed” and selling the license for it to LT, to stop any discussion he doesn’t like, that might have been bad.

Yeah definitely bad.

To the bone.