Dogs...

The Loony Bin ( loonies@bloodaxe.com )
Tue, 14 Dec 1999 04:44:33 +0000


Hiya All...

Here's another one for all the dog people out there...

Wishes & Dreams...

- ANDREA
        xx

*********THE LOONY BIN****loonies@bloodaxe.com*********
***                                                 ***
***      Archive: http://loonies.net800.co.uk/      ***
***                                                 ***
************ANDROMEDA******Internet Goddess************

  ------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------


DOGS

The First Fact
90% of pet owners talk to their pets. 

Pampered Pups
- Versatility Limited of Dorset, England, manufactures waterproof,
fireproof, bulletproof vests for dogs.
- A company in Britain makes fallout shelters for pets.
- Dede's Dog-O-Rama, a Manhattan store, sells $20 dog-food "deli-
platters" featuring snacks that look like tacos, bagels, and lollipops.
- A New York City pet shop sells a perfume for dogs called "Le Chien"
for only $38 for a 3.3 ounce crystal jar.
- You can get a dog house made for your pet that's an exact duplicate of
your own house from Animal Manors, Inc. in New York. The cost is only
about $10,000.
- A company in Tokyo runs a mobile pet funeral service. Their vans make
house calls whenever a beloved pet passes away. They place the remains
in a coffin, read poetry, cremate the animals, give the ashes to the
owner, and collect $400.
- The Vitacoat Company manufactured hair dyes for dogs, so that white-
coated poodles could be coloured to match the decor of the house they
live in or the wardrobe of their owner. Dogs could be dyed pink for
Valentine's Day or green for Christmas. They even made a dye called
"Silver Sheen" that put a sparkly glitter in a dog's coat. 

Famous Hounds
- Jayne Mansfield dyed her poodle pink to match her pink mansion. 
- To promote her film April in Paris Doris Day posed on the cover of
Collier's magazine along with six dyed poodles: two blue, two pink, one
green, and one orange.
- Country singer Merle Haggard had a part Chihuahua, part terrier dog
named Pepper. He posed with the dog on his album Best of the Best of
Merle Haggard in 1972. Once during a tour, everything ground to a
complete halt while Pepper's mother gave birth to puppies. 
- Tammy Fay Bakker had an air-conditioned doghouse for her pet.

Fast Facts
- In a study done at the University of Pennsylvania, 11 of 39 coronary
victims who did not have pets died within a year, compared to only 3 out
of 53 patients who owned pets. 
- It costs about $6,000 to raise a medium-size dog to the age of 11.
- There are about 400 pet cemeteries in the U.S.
- In 1894 New York State enacted the first dog-licensing law in the
nation. 
- In 80% of dog bites, victims are bitten by a family dog or the dog of
a neighbour. 60% happen between July and September. Boys under the age
of
15 are the most frequent victims.
- 20 mail carriers are bitten by dogs during an average day in America. 
- All dog breeds are genetically compatible: Great Danes can mate with
Chihuahuas; and any domestic dog can breed with a wolf.
- People started docking the tails of dogs around 100 A.D. because they
thought it would prevent rabies. 
- The American Kennel Club recognizes 130 breeds and registers more than
1.2 million purebred puppies per year. In recent years the poodle and
the cocker spaniel ranked highest in numbers of puppies registered. 

Wit Bit
Pepper Rogers, the head coach at UCLA in the 1970s, said that he took a
lot of criticism during his career. In fact, it got so bad that one day
he said, "My dog is the only friend I have, even my wife is mad at me. I
told her that a man needs at least two friends, and she told me to buy
another dog."

Dogs in Court
- Mary Murphy, an elderly widow in California, committed suicide in
1979. She stipulated in her will that her pet collie named Sido be put
to death because she feared no one could care for it as well as she did.
The attorney handling the will asked the judge to excuse this provision
if a good home could be found for the dog. The judge ruled that a dog is
property just like anything else, and refused. A massive outcry
occurred, culminating with the state legislature passing a unanimous
motion demanding another hearing for Sido. This led to the passing of a
new law preventing unnecessary destruction of animals. 
- When a woman's beloved pet poodle died, she paid good money for a
proper funeral and burial. But at the graveside she opened the casket to
have one last look at her dog. She was shocked and dismayed to find a
dead cat in the casket instead. She filed suit seeking damages from
shock and mental anguish. The judge awarded her $700 saying, "A pet is
not just a thing, but occupies a special place somewhere in between a
person and a piece of personal property."
- A woman died, leaving her entire $100,000 fortune to her pet
Pomeranian. A caretaker was appointed and the dog lived in luxury. The
relatives were understandably upset about this will and were quite
anxious for the dog to die so the rest of the money could be divided up
among them. When the dog achieved the age of 13 without showing any
signs of dying, they accused the caretaker of substituting other
Pomeranians. They insisted the dog be tattooed for identification
purposes. The caretaker refused. In court, the judge ruled that the dog
could be identified by a simple method of X-rays and photographs and no
tattoos were needed.
- A woman was walking down the street when two dogs came racing across
their yard, jumping against the fence and barking savagely. The lady was
so startled that she jumped away, right into the street where she was
hit by a car. She promptly sued the car's driver, the owner of the dogs,
and the next door neighbour for failing to keep shrubs clipped so she
could have seen the dogs approaching. The judge dismissed all charges,
saying dogs can reasonably be expected to bark and jump against a fence.

~Quotes~
"The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself
with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of
himself, too." -Samuel Butler
"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your
dog would go in." -Mark Twain
"Money will buy a pretty good dog but it won't buy the wag of his tail."
-Josh Billings
"Folks will know how large your soul is by how you treat a dog." -C.
Doran
"When a man's dog turns against him, it is time for a wife to pack her
trunk and go home to mama." -Mark Twain
"Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this - no
dog exchanges bones with another." -Adam Smith

Dog Names
- French people heard a dog howling and named it begle meaning open-
throated or bugling: the beagle. 
- Schnauzer comes from the German word for snorer. 
- An Airedale is a breed that originated in the dale of the Aire, a
river in England.
- Cocker spaniels were bred to flush woodcocks in Spain. 
- A German dogcatcher named Louis Doberman set out to develop a watchdog
by crossing terriers and pinchers. 
- Terriers were bred to dig in the earth to snatch small animals from
burrows. The Latin word for earth is terra. 
- Dachs means badger in German, and hund means dog: dachshund.
- Poodle comes from the German word pudel meaning splashing in water. 

Poodles
There's a reason why poodles get those weird haircuts. Poodles were bred
as retrievers. To help the dog swim faster, owners shaved off the heavy
fur. The dog swam faster without the fur, but owners began to worry
about the possibility of the dogs contracting pneumonia and rheumatism
from the cold water. So they began to leave the fur on the chest to
protect the dog's lungs, and on the legs to protect the joints. A pom-
pom was left on the tail to mark the dog's place in the water. Thus the
distinctive poodle cut was developed. Poodles are not French in origin.
They became known as French poodles when French circuses began using
them in animal acts.

It's a Dog's Life
- A dog's nose prints are as distinctive as our fingerprints and are
used by breeders for identification.
- Dogs wag their tails because it squeezes their anal scent glands and
fans their signature smell all around. 
- Puppies don't learn to wag their tails until they're between 30 and 49
days old.
- Free-roaming dogs spend up to three hours every day re-marking their
scent posts. 
- Dogs roll in dead things to disguise their smell. A deer will sniff
the wind and think, "I smell a big pile of doo-doo" instead of thinking,
"I smell a canine on the prowl."
- Wolves bark a little and howl a lot. Dogs bark a lot and howl a
little. Wolves and dogs both howl for the same reason: to get the entire
pack together in communication and galvanize them for action. A howl
means, "Where are you? Come join me! Let's go do something!" Sometimes
when people start singing, their dog mistakenly thinks they are howling
in order to draw the pack together, and will then start howling along.
- When wolves are teaching their pups to eat solid food, they will leave
various animal parts laying around the den: horns, bones, hooves. The
pups chew and gnaw on these objects as their teeth are coming in. When
humans leave their slippers or newspapers laying around, the pup assumes
it's for the same purpose, and will chew the object to bits - and then
be completely bewildered when it's punished for doing what comes
naturally.
- An adult wolf can eat 20 lbs. of meat in a single sitting, and can
consume 44 lbs. in 24 hours.
- A dog has 17 muscles in each ear.
- A dog can go for a month without food, but it will die if you withhold
sleep for five days.
- When dogs and humans sleep together, their sleep and dreaming cycles
coincide.

The Final Fact
7% of American dog owners admit to holding birthday parties for their
dogs and inviting other dogs. 


Please include this information if you forward this joke:
*********************************************************
     This joke and others like it, can be found in:
                     The Loony Bin
              http://loonies.net800.co.uk/
*********************************************************


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to loonies-unsubscribe@listbot.com