Pooperoni’s Pooper Scooper Blog

My giant stuffed teddy bear(80# pyrnees/collie(20#fur)) got her first grooming today. She looks great but didn’t have a great time at our local Petsmart. Two hours after dropping her off my phone rang, “Your dog is taking a long time to dry and she is trying to bite our blower.” a nervous voice told from the other end. I should have known. She has some funny idiosyncracies. For one she hates it when I vacuum. She will get up and leave the room or bark at the machine. Another when I give her baths she cries as if she was in extreme pain. She actually sounds human too, surely disturbing sounds to passerby.

They called back after another two hours. She looked great! I knew which table she had been groomed on too. The one with the copious amounts of white static-y fur under, over, and on.  She was unhappy with me for a little bit, and tired when she came in the house. Too much standing around, too much wind,  was pretty and happy to be home at last.

According to CBS early show(don’t blame me!) the smartest and dumbest dog breeds are as follows:

Smartest Dog Breeds..

1. Border Collie
2. Poodle
3. German Shepherd
4. Golden Retriever
5. Doberman Pinscher
6. Shetland Sheepdog
7. Labrador Retriever
8. Papillon
9. Rottweiler
10. Australian Cattle Dog

Dumbest Dog Breeds..

1.  Afghan
2. Basenji
3. Bulldog
4. Chow Chow
5. Borzois
6. Bloodhound
7. Pekingese
8. Mastiff
9. Beagle
10. Basset Hound

Later today, what breeds are the smartest and what breeds are the dumbest?

• 74.8 Million Dogs in the US
• 39% of US households own one or more dogs
• Number of male dogs is equal to number of female dogs
• 75% of dogs are spayed or neutered
• 10% of dogs were bought at a shelter
• 63% of owners have one dog
• 25% of owners have two dogs
• 12% of owners have 3 or more dogs

Source: The Humane Society of the United States - U.S. Pet Ownership Statistics

My neighbors just got a new puppy. He is an eight week old labra-doodle. Rob says he doesn’t know what to do with a dog. New dog owners and a new dog should give me an opportunity for a good laugh now and then. They have two kids too, 8 and 4 who will meet the puppy for the first time today. Now I wish I could see their reactions!

Several communities have taken steps to punish dog owners who leave behind pet poop in public places. The city council in Columbus, Ohio recently voted unanimously on a law that would mandate that pet owners remove pet poop from private property if a malorderous problem to neighbors. Violators must pay a $100 fine per violation. [Full Story]

My German Shepherd Dog (GSD) has recently been diagnosed with degenerative myelinopathy, a common disease in certain breeds. She is losing the feeling in her hindquarters and staggers and drags her hind legs a lot. It will get progressively worse as time goes on so I have been spoiling her as much as I can. The disease causes the nerves in her spinal chord to become de-myelinated. Myelin is a sheathing around the axons of the nerves. It’s like insulation around an electrical wire. As it is degraded the electrical impulses that carry signals to the brain from her muscles and skin get lost along the way. She doesn’t seem to know what her rear end is doing anymore. Many speculate that degenerative myelinopathy is a result of overbreeding for specific traits. AKC American GSDs like my dog were bred to have a rake or slant in their backs. The reason for it? I don’t know for sure, but I have heard it’s because it was a desired look in show dogs. The slant is responsible for other common problems in GSDs including major back and hip problems. Let’s help people wake up and discourage them from breeding or buying ‘American’ GSDs.

Big red. Professional pooper scoopers from across the country know the name well. I ordered mine on doitbest.com and picked it up yesterday. I told the clerk at Jerry’s hardware that I was there to pick up my dustpan. “Where did you put that gigantic dustpan?” he shouted to another employee. They found it(it’s hard to miss) and I managed to squeeze it into my two door convertible somehow without putting the top down. The convenience of this tool is great. I have been accustomed to raking piles into my smaller metal pan and then lifting it and transferring its contents into a large lined trash can. When I finish I have to disinfect the pan and the rake. With the big red, I just lined the big dustpan with a trash bag and raked the poop right in. Nice deal.

Did you know you can search for and buy domain names on eBay!? I enjoy browsing the “dot coms” and trying to understand and assess the value of individual names. No, I didn’t find Pooperoni.com on eBay. I was browsing deleted domain names on the whois website when I first read, “Pooperoni”, I laughed, saying the name out loud. I couldn’t get the name out of my head again so I thought it would make a great domain name for a pooper scooper directory.

I am perplexed. Why does the easter bunny bring eggs? Does he lay the eggs? Rabbits are mammals after all. What business does a rabbit have laying eggs?

I searched the internet and discovered no one clear answer. Even wikipedia could not nail it down. However here is what I can gather from all of the info. The easter bunny was originally a pagan symbol of fertility. Rabbits mate like, well rabbits, in the Spring. There is a legend of a certain pagan goddess, oestore(namesake of easter). She finds a bird with its wings frozen in the Spring and decides to turn him into a rabbit. The rabbit survives and is then able to lay eggs. Thereby establishing the connection between rabbit and egg.