Dive at Small Glass Planet spotted this sign at engrish.com and sent it. I wonder if he's trying to say something, something insulting about big Baxter. This sign is fitting, I think, although it's fitting for any home with a dog as all dogs are a little strange.
Are you aware that dogs eat cat vomit, and did you know they'll chew on random pieces of wood? I don't mean sticks or big chunks of pine mulch. I'm talking about the corner of a table or the leg of a chair, whatever is handy. My dog rings a bell when he needs to go out, and he gets a treat if he actually does his personal business after ringing it. But he also rings the bell if he just wants to go outside and smell the air or check out an unusual sound he detects. Sometimes he rings the bells just to go lay on the patio and chew on the old leather glove I gave him. I brought the nasty glove inside thinking that might reduce the bell ringing, but so far that hasn't helped.
Years ago when we lived in New Jersey, I drove past a house every day that posted a sign on the garage—Warning: Bad Dog. It was so unusual that I said the words "Bad Dog" when I read it, out loud, every day. The first time I tried to drive our stick-shift car by myself (it's a skill I've never fully learned), I found myself trapped at a stop light on a hill, and when the light turned green, I couldn't do anything but roll backwards. The house with the bad dog was on that corner, so I backed into its driveway and sat there to wait out the next red light on a level surface. My idea was to gun it as soon as the light turned green and avoid the hill, but I sat there for three light cycles at least before I could get anywhere. I worried about the bad dog that lived in that house and came up with fantastical images—a hound of the Baskervilles, a Steven King nightmare, a three-headed beast of mythological proportions.
I finally made it out of that driveway and never did see that dog. I also never drove that car again because someone took pity on me and gave me an old automatic to drive. But I have never forgotten the idea that someone might think they have a bad dog, but they keep the dog and warn the neighbors.
If I had a bad dog, I might find another home for it. The strange one I've got, though, stays here with me. And that's final.
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