Raccoon and Lobster

Caution: the first 15 seconds are basically all puppy butt.

Sometimes, when you love your audience very much, you have to lie to them. Not little lies, lies so great and raging that they would destroy nations.

ronnie told you such a lie when she suggested, nay, promised, that I would be guest blogging within one solar day.

Friends, never believe a word she says. The last time she told me to look out for a train, was there a train there?

No. No there was not.

Thus, in the spirit of being able to discriminate between puppies, I give you:Inquisitive.
Coy.

You decide which is which.

Four days without posting followed by a tortuously verbose post that is a thinly guised fart joke (belated spoiler warning!) without a punch line. And that really isn’t even all that funny. It is clear that rockyandarthur blog has fallen into decline, and much like ancient Rome, will enter a period of grotesque decadence and uninhibited savagery before its untimely demise. Thus, in the spirit of dragging out this shameful display and bringing the maximum allowed amount of of uncouth wantonness, there will be a surprise guest blogger introduced tomorrow.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Puppology have come up with an elegant theory of binary canine behavioral mechanics that has set the scientific community ablaze. M. Homard, with the aid of archivists at the Two Pups Historical Society, has discovered a startling correlation between the cordiality coefficient of a pup and an environmental disturbance he calls the SCF factor.

SCF is the collective name for a subset of malodorous gases that are emitted by some canids. While the presence of SCFs have been known for some time, it was Homard who first realized that SCF levels rise astonishingly in proportion to the cordiality coefficient. He devised a way to measure the SCF factor in a controlled setting by exposing laboratory mice to the toxic gasses while in a sealed room and counting the number knocked unconscious. The results were astonishing. Not even he could have predicted that SCF factors would achieve values as high as one thousand per cubic meter.

“I don’t think anyone knew just how potent SCF emissions were,” says Homard. “On the days that we achieved 9.5 cordiality or higher, the techs relied on a breathing apparatus to avoid headaches and nausea.”

The discovery has prompted a myriad of questions and researchers are struggling to understand the relationship between SCF and cordiality coefficients. It is unknown at this time whether SCF causes increased affability directly or if SCFs are merely a byproduct of a more complicated process. Homard claims it shall be years before we truly understand the chemical reactions that tie SCF to behavior. This uncertainty has not stopped rising numbers of owners from plying their pups with SCF enhancers like provolone, cheddar, and mozzarella in an attempt to achieve stratospheric cordiality coefficients.

Readers are reminded that the use of provolone and other dairy products as a behavioral modifier is not regulated by the FDA. Due to the risk of injury or death by overexposure to SCF, people are urged to experiment in open areas with good ventilation.

Having apparently taken this to heart, Arthur decided to make a showing at a conformation match on Saturday in the hopes of earning some respect.

End result: a ribbon for Best of Breed and one for 4th place in Group. Which all sounds pretty impressive for a novice pup except for one crucial bit of information: he was the best Golden Retriever not because there was no one goldener or retrieverer, but because there was no one. Period. I suppose we should be grateful no one decided to shame him by entering a llama with a haircut or a coffee table covered in shag carpet.

Arthur: Heyyy dudes. Ya wanna go like hang out?
Rocky: Atten-HUT! Left face! March!

Arthur:

Rocky:

What more needs to be said?

* Blame Scott for that one.

For anyone watching outside the house at around 6:58pm the pup that did the Looney Tunes-style running skid* was none other than Fats McGee.

*You know the one I’m talking about: four legged animal starts running, the front legs stumble but the hind legs are still going at full speed so the front half goes down in a cloud of dust but the animal continues to be propelled forward by the hind legs that are now spinning faster and faster to keep up with the sliding torso. A few short seconds later, the front legs catch up and move forward as if nothing happened and only a few errant grass stains stand as testament to the event.

The Arthropod hides amidst the plumbing, waiting to terrorize poor souls trying to use the bathroom:
The evil Raccoon lurks under the bed, biding his time until nightfall to nibble off tender fingers and toes that escape over the edge:

Rocky: gazes deep into your eyes, smiling like your best buddy in the world. He’s your best buddy, why wouldn’t you let him eat his dinner? If that doesn’t work, the smile ventures into greasy car salesman territory before it is gone forever, replaced by the sleepy godfather gaze, the calm exterior hiding the savageness within. If you wait this long to let him have his food, beware that no fingers and toes are in his way.

Arthur: eternal optimist, despite his sad, sad eyes. Stares at the food laid out in front of him, willing it to crawl inside his mouth. As time goes on, his head sinks lower and lower, pulled earthward by the tractor beam between his mouth and the food. A parenthetical observation about Muhammad and the mountain is appropriate here. If you wait long enough, his head will eventually touch the food, at which point he will decide that it would be rude to bar such delectable morsels entry into his stomach and surreptitiously attempt to eat it without you noticing.

*I am entitled to congratulations for not spelling that “phood” or “filosophy”. It was hard, but I resisted.