This is another TDB Halloween update. I'm your doggie host Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel with an important safety reminder from the Yum Yum Coalition. Please make sure your doggies do not get into the Halloween candy. Chocolate, artificial sweeteners, and raisins (if anyone still gives these as treats) are poisonous to doggies.
Well, it is 8:25PM, and the number of trick-or-treaters is starting to decline. My overworked colleague Chester L. W. Spaniel is now asleep on the floor, exhausted, from all his strenuous barking activity this evening. Hopefully the human children are all safe at home now, enjoying their yum yums, and we can call it a night.
Hello. This is your sane doggie host Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel here for a TDB update on the proceedings of this Halloween night. My associate Chester L. W. Spaniel was too fat to fit in the Santa costume, and thought the hot dog costume was a squeaky toy. Therefore I was obliged to be the hot dog once again. He also became too perturbed when scary trick-or-treaters came to our door, so we were also obliged to be stuck up in the office with one of our humans while the others managed candy hand-out duty.
As you can see, he's too rotund to dress up as Santa Clause!
At this time Chester is barking out the second story window at the people walking by on the sidewalk. I imagine that is scary enough for the occasion. If any more breaking news occurs, we will be sure to let you know, but at this time, we doggies still don't understand this strange human holiday.
Welcome to another edition of The Daily Bone. I'm your doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel, chairman of the Squeaky Party. With me today is my learned colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel, founder of the Yum Yum Coalition, where yum yums are always serious business.
Today's subject is Halloween. What's up with that? Joey dog and I both agree, it's totally confusing. It is our understanding that our job is to keep strangers away from the house by barking and growling fiercely. But on that night, all kinds of people in scary outfits come to our door and we get yelled for doing our job. Furthermore, our humans even give yum yums to these heinous invaders. Not just any yum yums either. Joey dog tells me from personal experience that chocolate is a most delicious treat, even if you have to be forced to drink hydrogen peroxide afterward that makes you barf it back up again.
Oh, wait a minute. If those bothersome intruders eat the chocolates, won't they have to drink H2O2 and barf it up too? That means—think real hard about this—our humans are actually defending the house by giving out these treats? Isn't that right? Bwahahahahah! We doggies are rolling on the floor laughing!
Oh, wait a minute. We doggies are the sworn protectors of the human race. It's not right to give poisonous treats to anyone, even dangerous scary house monster invaders. Therefore, we will resume our designated job, and endeavor to bark and growl as loudly and as vigorously as possible at every stranger: go away evil aliens, or else you will be forced to barf! Bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark snarl woof woof woof woof woof bark bark bark! Halloween is still as confusing as ever!
Hello out there. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your erudite doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel.
A fan remarked on my last TDB about squeaky toy management. She said I spend more time on my squeaky toy inventory than she does on her business inventory. Well, that’s because squeaky toys are serious business. They can be very capricious, you know, and I need to keep close track of them. Sometimes they hide under the couch, and behind doors and curtains. Sometimes my humans throw away my old tattered ones without consulting me. I always remember who gave me which squeaky toy, and can pick it out of my storage facility whenever that person comes to visit. All that takes time and energy, and is an important part of my daily routine besides sleeping, guarding the house and property, and chasing squirrels.
Well, it’s starting to get cold out now. The winter birds are arriving, and some of my humans are complaining about the icy wind, the dreary clouds, and the fact that it’s dark by six o’clock. The leaves are almost all down, which means I can now see those marauding squirrels up there in the silver maple tree. It’s also football season. I have tried to understand this sport that the humans seem to like so much. It looks like a bunch of men in funny pants running around, knocking each other down, and throwing an oddly shaped squeaky ball as far as possible. I have played a similar game, except it involves taking a scrap of something from the garbage can and running wildly around the house trying to keep it away from my humans. That’s usually a lot of fun.
On the political side of things, the blame game over the debt ceiling, health insurance, the shut-down, foreign policy, etc. goes on and on. Yawn. I might remind everyone that the Squeaky Party was founded a little more than a year ago as an alternative to the big two parties that are constantly fighting about everything. We stand for life (hey we’re alive!) liberty (we can make our own decisions) and the pursuit of happiness (squeaky toys make everybody happy and thus promote cooperation and understanding.) My advice to the Democrats and the Republicans: take a break from all the fighting. Throw a squeaky ball around for a while. Watch a football game together, cheer for your favorite team, and jump up and down until you get all your negative energy out of your system. Take a nice walk with your doggie in the crisp Autumn air. Send all those lobbyists out to chase the squirrels away from the First Lady’s garden. Send the reporters out on a doggie poop scoop. Then, sit down and figure out some good solutions to all the problems in a calm and rational way. And that’s a memo.
Hi everybody. This is The Daily Bone, and I’m your professional host Chester L. W. Spaniel, chairman of the Squeaky Party, and expert on squeaky toys.
For those of you who may not be familiar with standard squeaky toy procedures, please refer to the following photos in which I will go through the technique. The first step is to give the new toys a good sniff to determine if any other doggie or human has handled them. It also helps me catalog them in my doggie brain so I can find them later. You might remember that the selection of new squeaky toys in photo #1 was sent to me by one of my super fans last May. For these, I remain eternally grateful. The next step requires thorough unstuffing and squeaky removal. Personally, I think the squeaky is like the prize in the Cracker Jack box. I never swallow a squeaky whole. I give it a good chew first. Usually my humans take the chewed up plastic squeaky away so I don’t swallow it. But I have swallowed a few and have suffered no unfortunate symptoms. Then, there is squeaky toy storage and maintenance. In the next photo, you can see my squeaky toy storage facility behind me, which consists of a few baskets that are kept on the bottom shelf of the TV cabinet. Periodically, I take out a few squeaky toys and inspect them to make sure no one else has messed with them and that my inventory is still correct. Then comes the best part: contentment. And that’s a memo.
Good evening. This is The Daily Bone, and I’m your popular doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel. I'm on a roll because this is the second TDB I've written today. I could have waited until tomorrow to post this one, but I'm too excited to wait that long.
I have just heard that The Daily Bone has some amazing new fans that I would like to introduce to everyone right away. They are Raelin’s Turkey Squad, and they live with their human family in Pennsylvania. I am told these intelligent birds are excellent at watching and protecting the property, just like us doggies. They gobble different alarm calls depending on what creature is approaching. My esteemed colleague Joseph (Joey dog) and I have different types of barks and howls too. For example, when I spot an approaching stranger, I let out a long whistling alarm howl. Then I bark my “big boy” deep throated bark. If humans from our family are coming home, we doggies have a higher pitched bark for that. The turkeys, whose names are Clyde, Dexter, Ella, Bella, and Olivia, are quite fashionable too, wearing the same tan and white colors as yours truly. The Squad also follows their humans everywhere just like we do. Wow! If you look hard enough, and keep an open mind, you’ll find that we are all more alike than different.
Hi.
Here they are patrolling the yard.
I was glad to hear that all members of Raelin’s Turkey Squad are on permanent assignment, which means they will never have to show up on a Thanksgiving Day table full of stuffing and roasted to a delicate golden brown. What a relief that is!
Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your undead doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel.
Welcome to my nightmare!
So what is the deal with zombies anyway? Neither my erudite colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel nor I can understand why the humans keep coming up with zombies as a form of entertainment in TV shows and movies. We all know it’s chemically impossible to reanimate something that is dead, especially if it’s been dead for a long time. The usual scenario is that there is some kind of virus, disease, parasite, an alien, or even a curse or an evil spirit that takes over a dead body and reanimates it. Sometimes, it only takes a bite from a zombie to pass the zombie disorder illness syndrome malady to people who are alive.
Zombies only eat brains. If they’re dead, why do they need to eat? And why brains? They all want to kill the living for some reason, after they terrorize them, of course. There are a few other things zombies have in common. First, they cannot comprehend glass windows, and reliably smash into them, usually with a full body thump and/or splat. (Hey, maybe Crazy Bird is a zombie considering the number of times he’s bashed himself against the windows of our house!) They all walk funny, and don’t seem to know where they’re going. They all have skin discoloration, scabs or open wounds, blood stains, rotting or missing teeth, messy hair, torn up clothes, and weird eyeballs. They all make funny gurgling and/or moaning noises, and sometimes their body parts fall off. And, little kids love to dress up and pretend to be zombies.
Horrifying.
Yesterday, there was an editorial column in the local newspaper about zombies, that said liberals love zombies. The doggie logic machine threw up a clinker on that one! What do zombies have to do with politics? Why would only liberals like zombies? The only thing we doggies could come up with is that perhaps a zombie is the only thing left that is politically correct to kill. In fact, it’s PC to kill them in any kind of way, be it an arrow to the head, a bullet to the head, a grenade to the head, a tree limb to the head, a bazooka shot to the head, a motorized vehicle to the head, a sword swipe to the head, a tire iron to the head, a rock to the head, a pea shooter to the head, a flame thrower to the head, a laser zap to the head, a baseball bat to the head, a hockey stick to the head … well, I think you get the idea. Personally I would have Ironing Board Man simply drive over their heads and flatten them. The fact that they're already dead doesn't seem to matter.
I imagine one day zombie-ism will be an accepted medical diagnosis, or an alternative life-style choice, and research will be done with government grants to understand and cure it. There will be a zombie awareness week, an anti-hate campaign with a fund raiser raffle ticket zombie bake sale, zombie support groups, a zombie pride march, and a bill in congress to give zombies the same rights and privileges as all other US citizens. That would be the American way.
Joey dog and I decided to watch some zombie footage on youtube. We are very excited to have found a few videos that not only feature zombies, but food as well! Hooray! And that’s a memo. Have fun!
Good morning. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your humble terrestrial doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel, along with my erudite colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel.
Last weekend our favorite miniature human, Ryan, made the intergalactic journey to visit us on our home planet. After a delicious dinner of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans—Ryan ate his astronaut food—it was play time. To our surprise, Ryan had mastered the technique of crawling! He proceeded to explore the kitchen and dining room portions of our house, and we doggies had great fun showing him around. Lots of photographs were taken to document this momentous occasion. But later, when we were examining these photographs, we discovered something very strange. In almost every picture, we doggies were out of focus and blurry. Joey dog and I have no rational explanation for this, except that maybe it was a paranormal time warp effect due to the proximity of his futuristic traveling device. I recall this happening in association with that magical blinky ball that came out of the heating vents under the house (see TDB Paranormal Experiences posted Aug. 29.)
Look Ryan, here are the doggie food bowls. Doggie food is delicious!
This is the dining room table.
You can go around the chairs instead of under them, you know.
Joey dog and I put in a call to our expert on paranormal experiences, Professor Braydie Spiker. She said she has run across similar photographic phenomena, and that they were usually in relation to UFOs. Wow! Amazing! She sent us a picture too, but reminded us that her UFO research is top secret. Imagine what would happen if her discoveries got into the wrong hands! Don’t worry Professor. Special Agents Joey dog and Ryan and I will guard this information carefully.
We did manage to capture one photo in which everyone was in focus. Here, Joey dog was proudly demonstrating to Ryan the proper technique for sitting in a grown-up chair. And that’s a memo.
Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your humble doggie host Chester
L. W. Spaniel, chairman of the Squeaky Party. I still think squeaky
toys will save the world, eventually.
Come on, squeaky ball. Get to work saving the world!
I'm sure you're
as tired as I am of all the blather about politics lately. In fact, I'm
not even listening anymore. Instead I'm counting how many times I hear
or see the word "battle" while I'm trying to ignore stories that have anything to do with the Debt Ceiling, Affordable Care, Government Shut-down, blah, blah, blah, etc. Then I checked the
thesaurus for more words that mean battle and this is what I got:
strife, contention, struggle, combat, fighting, bloodshed, clash,
onslaught, onset, barrage, conflict, warfare, fray, assault, military
campaign, havoc, and carnage. Havoc and carnage? Wow! Is there really all that going on in
Washington? That certainly seems pretty intimidating! Never fear, though. If the Squeaky Party ever has to get involved in all this fighting nonsense, I found the perfect person to coach us in the use of fighting words. His vocabulary is very impressive indeed. There is a link to him below.
What ever happened to words like peace, compromise, cooperation, settlement,
resolution, healing, ceasefire, calm, order, agreement, planning, negotiation, and
fiscal responsibility? On top of all that, I heard there was yet another
gigantic load of pork barrel spending added to whatever they all ended up agreeing on,
which was basically nothing other than procrastination. So who won this glorious, thrilling, block buster, exciting, TV rate-boosting, extravagant
conflagration? Not us tax payers, that's for sure! I think I'd better find some good hiding places for my squeaky toys so the government doesn't confiscate them to pay for all their expensive plans. I saw a little birdie called a nuthatch in our back yard today. He was taking seeds from the bird feeder and stuffing them, one at a time, into the cracks of the tree bark. Brilliant! And that's a memo.
Hello. This is The Daily Bone, and I’m your humble doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel, chairman of the Squeaky Party, along with my colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel.
Today’s vocabulary word is dichotomy. It means separation or contrast between two sides. If you pay any attention to the political news, you should have noticed that our government is split right now. There are two teams, the Democrats and the Republicans, and they are violently opposed to each others ideas, and are rejecting every attempt to compromise. Failure to come up with a solution to the crisis du jour will send the USA careening into economic disaster and meltdown. But we’ve already discussed these dooms day scenarios in excruciating detail.
Are you seeing double yet?
In other news, the crazy red cardinal who has been attacking his reflection in the windows of our house, has now been spotted assaulting the rear view mirrors on our cars in the driveway. He’s also bombarding the car doors with poop. Unfortunately, my jurisdiction doesn’t include the driveway and cars. I suggest the humans tie plastic bags around the rear view mirrors until Crazy Bird either gives up, or bashes himself into a coma. Wow, all this anger and energy just to annihilate an imaginary foe! It kind of sounds like our government. In the meantime, I will continue my barking campaign and try to convince him to go away.
This is The Daily Bone, and I'm your hardworking, and humble doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel.
I just found out that the Evil Squirrel Cartel has invaded the White House vegetable garden because the humans who do the work there have been furloughed. In an article in the New York Post (link below) it says squirrels are eating the First Lady's tomatoes! That's outrageous! First of all, I've never in my entire career seen squirrels eat tomatoes! Neither has my venerable associate Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel. Second, why does the First Lady need helpers? Why aren't she and her daughters, and her husband too for that matter, out there taking care of it? It's her garden. Third, White House doggies Bo and Sunny, why aren't you out there chasing the squirrels away? For heaven's sake, doggies are the original homeland security experts! Guarding the house and property are your highest and most honorable priorities.
In case you White House doggies need a refresher course on guarding property, here are a few instructional photographs of Joey dog and me doing our jobs.
Here I am after conducting a perimeter sweep of the back yard.
Here is Joey dog guarding the hawthorn berries so that the squirrels don't eat them all.
Here is Joey dog eating a cauliflower leaf from the compost pile so that … actually,
I don't know why he does that.
Here I am doing a visual scan for squirrels in the hawthorn tree.
Munch munch munch. It's top secret.
No tree escapes my thorough inspection. I am proud to say there are no squirrels in this yard today!
I think you get the idea. Now go out there, Special Agents Bo and Sunny, and do your patriotic duty!
Hello. This is The Daily Bone and I’m your exasperated doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel.
I am sick and tired of that stupid debt ceiling already, and it doesn’t even happen until next week! This is yet another artificial crisis manufactured by the media and politicians. There have been so many of these over the last year that I don’t care anymore. I just roll my eyes and groan, then get on with my business. Politics should not be a series of impending disasters. Government should not conducted like a block buster end-of-the-world (again) movie. Politicians should not be super heroes, or super villains either. Balancing the budget should not be like exploding the Death Star. And by the way, let the people see their National Parks and Monuments. They belong to all of us, and it’s costing more to keep people out than to let them in. Duh! This is utterly preposterous! I decided to do a survey to see what others think of all this foolishness, and here is what they said:
Professor Braydie Spiker: What, another crisis? You've got to be kidding me!
Do I have to be awake for this?
Joseph (Joey dog) Stephens: Don't bother me.I'm chewing on my foot.
The Lady Galadriel: Will this affect my regularly
scheduled meal times?
Elvis:Make them eat bugs until they cooperate! Sheesh!
Frankie: From my point of view, it is all quite silly, really.
Crazy Bird: Crisis? What crisis? I got my own crisis!
Lane: There is obviously a conspiracy involved.
Jason: Derp
Grover: What was the question again?
I wasn't paying attention.
Mr. Shrew: Leave me alone. I just want to eat slugs.
American Pollen Worker's Union: Buzz off! We're working here!
Good evening. This is The Daily Bone. I’m your patriotic doggie host Chester L. W. Spaniel, chairman of the Squeaky Party, where sanity still exists. With me is my esteemed colleague Joseph (Joey dog) Spaniel, founder of the Yum Yum Coalition, where food still exists too.
Imagine that.
Attention everybody! May I have your attention please! The United States of America is teetering on the brink of economic collapse, destruction, and annihilation of epic proportion! Planes will fall out of the sky, cities will sink into the ocean, foreign invaders will overrun our formerly great nation, civil war will erupt in the streets, and we will plunge into the eternal darkness of insanity and idiocy. All life will cease, and global warming will incinerate the corpses. And … You know what? We’ve heard it all before! We’re tired of listening anymore. As the saying goes, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” We have work to do. If we want drama, we can go see a block buster movie. They’re probably all on cable now anyway, so we just have to switch the channel.
Hey, you politicians—and Mr. President too—haven’t you heard? The government is shut down. So why are you all still running around on Capitol Hill in your spiffy suit coats, making speeches about how you refuse to negotiate and compromise about anything? And OMD, I have never heard such name-calling in my entire life! Go home already. Mow the lawn, pick up the doggie poop, have a picnic with your family, and take your doggie for a walk. When you are calm and rational, and the Press gets bored and runs out of impending disasters to report, come back and do your job. Don't worry, because by then, everyone will have forgotten all the nasty things you said. Sit down together and hammer out a plan that works for everyone. Harumph!
Wake us up when you get to that point.
In local news, the crazy red cardinal is still attacking our windows, but not as much as before. I think my barking campaign is working. I found another mousie in the back yard, but my humans called me into the house before I could dig up all the lavender and catch him. Joey dog and I are still maintaining our surveillance of the yard, and haven't seen any evil squirrels lately. We haven't seen or heard any more ducks and geese either. The weather has cooled off, and the trees are turning colors and dropping leaves. The gold finches have all changed into their olive drab winter feathers. Ironing Board Man and his friends built us a new driveway, and the Autumn sunsets are spectacular. Life goes on, and the world hasn't come to an end (again) despite what the national news says. And that's a memo.
Tap tap tap. Hello? Tap tap tap tap.
Mr. Mousie, I know you're in there. Come out with your hands up!
Don't look now Joey dog, but those duck dynasty guys are watching us again.
Ironing Board Man, hooray! You're still my favorite super hero!
Beautiful sunset. The world will still be here tomorrow.
