Your crag dog probably sucks.

Whenever I go climbing on the weekends, at least three times before I get to the first climb I want, I hear this “BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK” and then some random dog sniffs me and then some idiot says, “oh Twiddles!  Why are you doing that?”  Not all the dogs are named Twiddles.  But they’re all named something stupid.  “Don’t bother the nice man!  He doesn’t want to hurt you.”  This is not true. I want to shoot the dog in the face.  The most frustrating thing is that they speak to the dog in the same soothing tone they use when the dog does something they want, something they don’t want, and something irrelevant, like the dog understands English.  “Twiddles,” they say, like they were talking to their sister’s baby, “why did you pee on the carpet?  Why didn’t you lay down?  Why are you barking?  Why did you announce your candidacy for the Republican primary before doing any fund raising?”

Your dog does not understand English.  There is a reason that some owners have dogs that don’t bark at other dogs, that don’t bark at people, that lay down when told, and timely secure fund raising.

Now, a good 30% of it is that pure-breds are generally crazy, and as someone who needs to have a pure bred, you had it coming, and you probably get along better with a dog that’s as crazy as you are.  But the remaining 70%, or 100% if you have a mutt, is that, as an owner, you suck.

Here’s the great rule of dog ownership: consistently and immediately reward them for good behavior and consistently and immediately discipline them for the bad.  Is your dog doing things you don’t want it to?  Are you carrying a choke chain and a box of dog treats around?  And don’t get all whiney about the shock collar or the choking.  Both are completely usually most of the time safe.  Insert too soon David Carradine joke here.

Death by autoerotic asphyxiation: better than death by lung cancer, bitches!

Usually, like the awful mothers on those super-nanny shows, it’s because the owners want to be “nice” and don’t want to discipline precious Twiddles for a few weeks, but would rather have him annoy everyone, bite people, and shit in their (owner’s) bed for the next ten years until he gets heartworms and dies.  (Given their diets, I believe the children on TV also get heartworms.)  I would endure twenty crying babies before dealing with one dog barking and sniffing.  With the dog, you know that the owner’s an idiot who you then have to beware of for fear they’ll drop equipment, install aluminum permadraws, or play Maroon 5 on a boombox, all of which can cause serious physical injury under certain circumstances.  (“But the lead singer is hot” is never going to be an excuse for being a shitty musician, ever!  Ever!)

As much as I rag on them, the producer who "spotted" him probably deserves most of the blame.

You can pick up other people’s litter, ask people to turn off boomboxes, and chop routes at night, but you still get arrested for shooting dogs.  The only advantage I have in this war is that I have a glare that shouldn’t be street legal.  Just ask someone I’ve glared at.  They still haven’t gotten over it.