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Ewe otter know by now how much I love animals. Lemming tell you, I don’t want to boar you, but any time you want to weasel your way into my good graces, I’m a sucker for dog stories.
No, I don’t want you to toady up to me, just come right out and tell me about your dog. Or cat, of course. Before you know it. I’ll be lapin it up. Just pony up your pet story and I might even be able to whippet into shape for this column someday.
Sometimes I feel sheepish about my love for animals, because, of course, not even dogs are perfect, as deer as they are. Some have no problem piscine all over the place, while others badger their humans for treats all the time, until you can hardly bear them.
Most of them wolf down their food with no table manuls at all. (Hey, it’s in the book, so I’m using it). A few will squirrel away food for rainy dace, while many of them gobbler down everything they find pasang by.
Not to snipe about it, but when did people get so gullible that they started to swallow the idea that animals don’t have feelings like people do? Owl tell you one thing, I’ve had eight dogs in my lifetime, and every one of them had more feelings than Osama Bin Llama, so there.
The big wahoos of science don’t like to anthropomorphize animals. That’s their bully word for crowing about how people like to find human qualitites in animals, and they grouse about it all the time. I think they’re carping about the fact that most scientists believe in some fluke of evolution (as I do in general), that turns out very different creatures, all of whom ahare their bassic condition of existence. It sounds aukward to me, but they seem to be saying that it’s OK to say that people are like animals, but not that animals are like people. Hmmm, some underlying lynx of logic are missing there.
But then all of us are skateing on thin ice, as far as animals are concerned. We like them in their plaice, which is heron earth with us, but we are not on good terns with them anymore. We think an ocelot more about ourselves than we do about them.
I suppose I’ll cachalot of grief just because I believe animals do have feelings. I’m sika tired of herring that they don’t. They can’t put their paws on them but they ferret them out somehow. I don’t want to flounder around too much here, but I’m shrewed enough to notice that, moray and moray, Rusty likes to be with peba-l. Open the back door, and indigoes right away into the house. So much for the rabbits and deer and mice and neighbor dogs outside.
Canary of my readers bat an ayeaye about the hardest problem for an animal-lover?
It’s being a carnivore. I get ticked off at people who pig out on meat and rail at vegetarians, as much as I do at the vegetarians who harrier meat-eaters, a habit which is after all a human inhareitance. I vulture to say that I duck the whole argument myself. (I do apologize to the animal I’m eating though.)
The cardinal rule in life is simply to be porpoiseful. Don’t be bittern or boa-ing, but have good in-tench-ions. Don’t lark around or go puffin yourself up, or be a piker or a sloth, or wallaby the wayside. You toucan goby the straight way. That bugs some and buffaloes the rest. And cut the crappie.
Cruelty toward animals really gets my goat. I know that’s not gnu; for years I’ve wanted to gopher anybody who mistreats them — and I’m not lion. I assume both of my rheaders feel the same way. I’d like to give a shiner to anyone I see hurting innocent creatures.
I think koala the time about how innocent animals are. What a shame some people gannet ever egret human cruelty to them, like dog racers, rodeo performers, and matadors. Albatross Perot himself was never so bullheaded. I am not chewink out my readers about this — I know you both horse around a lot, but I would never accuse you of robin Peter to pay Poll, even if I were raven mad.
Before iguana my way, I must say one moa thing, and then I’ll stop yakking.
I’ve had a whale of a time, but after this column, I think I’m going to have to take it on the lamb, for a few days. (That is, vamoose.)
And not a marmot too soon!
Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.
Maude McDaniel - Living
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Maude McDaniel
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Here’s what I’m worrying about this week: the modern pollution of early memory. Don’t get it? Well, that’s why I’m writing this article.
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The longer I live, the less I can tolerate
The older you get the lower your tolerance level sinks. I may have written about these before, but nothing has changed so I’m going to try to change the world again.
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So many things she doesn’t understand
At my age, I hate to admit it — but there is so much in this world that I — still — don’t understand.
People who don’t care about Monarch butterflies, for instance. -
Each of us has our good and bad times
Life is full of ups and downs — and that’s a good thing. Of course, most of us would prefer ups to downs, but life sees it differently, so we get our share of each. I remember two incidents in my past that balance each other — both happened in school, although I was a child for the one and an adult for the other. As I remember, I preferred the up to the down.
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Getting used to some things takes an effort
Not too long ago I wrote a column oozing with self-control, in which I mentioned several developments in life that it wouldn’t kill me to get used to. In the interests of equal time, today I have to write about certain developments in this world that I doubt I will ever get used to .
Like tattoos, for instance. -
Each of them found a Spot in her heart
Inspired by the Westminster Dog Show, I decided to write about my dogs. You already know I have had eight of them but you tend not to know who they are so I will enlighten you. No column was ever wasted writing about dogs!
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It wouldn’t kill her to do it differently
It’s taken me 80-some years to admit this, but, you know, there are some things I do that it wouldn’t kill me of if I stopped doing them one of these days.
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Here’s all you wanted to know about tails
Okay, here’s something I have wondered about for a long time.
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Never skipped? You missed something
A friend of mine, whom I will call Jane because that is her name, and I were talking about what we did well as children. It was a short conversation. We only shared two physical traits as children, and one of them was that we didn't do anything very well at the time — especially physical-type stuff.
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John Adams might be surprised byf this
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
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Feed your memories before they’re used up
