I spuddle.

Sometimes people look to Google for an awful lot.    For example, today’s question, which landed someone on my website instead of where they wanted to go, which was obviously 1900psychic.com (I made that up, don’t click through, I don’t know where you will land).

Would YOU ask a search engine this question?  Let’s hope not.   Because that would make you “psycho” or maybe just “really really misguided”.

Question of the Day:  “Should I keep my German Shepherd dog?”

OK.   Well.   It’s hard to know where to begin, but I’m going to begin with the answer.   The answer is “No” and I’m not even going to consult the Magic 8 Ball to be sure.    I am confident in this answer.   Thank you for stopping by.

I’ll elaborate, because I am nothing if not someone who talks too much even when I have nothing to say.   Here’s the thing:   I don’t know why you are contemplating giving up your dog but I’m a Dog Person, even though I don’t actually have a dog, and I can tell you that if you’re sitting down to coffee one morning and thinking about what to look for on the internet, and your big loving lump of a dog* catches your eye and you think, “Hey!   Maybe I should get rid of my DOG!”   Then you should probably give your dog to someone who will actually just pat their dog on the head and search for some new shoes instead.   Dogs are part of your family once you’ve adopted them.   You’d have to be a pretty cold person to ask Google if you should toss them, frankly.   It’s an animal!   A real live animal!   With feelings!   And whatnot!   If you are wondering if you should give your dog away because your dog is a pain, it’s your fault to begin with for not properly training the dog and probably not paying enough attention to it because you were too busy asking Google if you should leave your husband or put your baby up for adoption.    Christ on a pogostick, people, it’s a SEARCH ENGINE.   If you really need answers from an inanimate object, try the Magic 8 Ball.    It’s much more likely to have a valid (or at least ignorable) answer, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

I will also say that we always had German Shepherds when I was growing up.    I don’t have much more to say about that except that we did and they were lovely although the second one had this annoying habit of running in somewhat insane figure eights at high speed, plowing down whomever was in her path, which made her a bit of a nuisance when you wanted to NOT be plowed down by 80 pounds of hair and teeth.    When she wasn’t running maniacally (she actually ran ditches into the backyard), she was great.   I can still cry about her death if you ask me about it, so don’t ask.    If we still had her, I’m sure we would not have put her on Prozac, even though her behaviour was neurotic.  I mention this because I was thinking maybe your dog is depressed because you don’t love him/her and perhaps some Prozac would help.    I saw on 60 Minutes or 20/20 or one of those shows (about ten years ago, but who’s counting?) how Prozac is being used more and more on animals which frankly I think is madness and probably speaks to how drug companies are exploiting our pets.

In the interest of winding up this post, I will tell you that the song I have in my head at this exact moment is “Staying Alive”.    Sing it to yourself right now while the blog credits roll.    Dance if you need to.    Do not step on your dog in the process though, that poor animal has enough problems.

Now on with my day.   It is Monday so I have to save most of my blogging energy for The Bachelorette, because although I’ve forgotten all the Bachelor wannabes suitors from last week’s show already, you know I’ll be glued to the set, or at least watching it out of the corner of my eye while I blog carefully crafted witticisms some vague commentary interspersed with  anecdotes about me the show for your reading enjoyment tomorrow.

* Unless your dog has bitten someone, in which case you are on your own.   I am very anti-dog bite (Is anyone actually for dog bites?) since The Birdy was attacked by a dog at the beach this spring.     I’m still pretty mad about it and in addition to mad about the dog, still annoyed about the Facebook fight an old highschool friend picked with me about how it wasn’t the dog’s fault, it was the owner’s fault and I shouldn’t have taken my child to the beach if I didn’t want her to be mauled by a vicious animal and I obviously wasn’t teaching my child how to love.    Eventually I will let it go, but probably not in the near future because that’s not how I roll.

Filed under: Answers To Questions You Didn't Actually Ask