The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I have a 5-year-old Siberian Husky rescue named Lexi. She's my third husky, fourth dog overall, and although I might be a tad biased, I think she may be the best dog ever. Huskies are typically great dogs. They're: Full of energy; always in the puppy stage; great with kids; force their owners to give them exercise and attention, improving their health in the process; and tend to see everyone as their best friend. Having said all this, though, huskies are also typically not the most loyal bunch of dogs and are rather notorious for being escape artists. My second husky, the biggest of the three, still found a way to work her Houdini act on numerous occasions, where she'd dig under the backyard fence and roam about the neighborhood. My first husky wasn't so eager to leave the backyard, yet if a strong wind knocked the gate or a door open, she was off to the races. They had starkly different personalities, as one was fearful of walking down to the basement and ran outside...

Through my 35 years, I've owned four dogs, one cockapoo (cocker spaniel/poodle mix) and three Siberian Huskies. My current dog, Lexi, is a 3-year-old husky (rescue dog). In case you or someone you know is thinking about buying a husky, here are some things you should probably know: Pros - Friendly : No matter what you've heard about huskies in the past, they are some of the friendliest dogs you could ever meet. If they're not running around and looking to play, you know something's wrong. My dog, Lexi, will play with anyone or anything. There are nights I have to remind her it's 2 o'clock in the morning and time to sleep. If she could play 24 hours a day, she would, and even then, that still wouldn't be enough. - Energetic : Until they reach older age, huskies tend to act like puppies. This is why they're fairly common "therapy" dogs. Even on the worst of days, my dog just has a way of cheering me up. They require a lot of exercise, so wit...

The slippery slope is a fairly popular fallacy used by far-right conservatives when attempting to delegitimize the concept of gay marriage. It usually goes something like this: "Marriage should be between one man and one woman. If we allow gay people to marry, then what? Why not make marrying more than one person at a time legal? Why not make marrying an animal legal? If gay marriage becomes legal, pretty soon polygamy and bestiality will be legal!" Well, GOPers may now want to exclude that bestiality bit from their fallacy, because as a recent story suggests, bestiality doesn't follow gay marriage's lead at all - quite the opposite. Allow me to introduce Ruben Chance James Fox and his wife, Amber Nicole Fox. The fact their last name is the same as that of an animal is merely a coincidence. They're both 23 years old and living in North Carolina. So, what does the young couple like to do in their spare time? Apparently, Ruben enjoys recording his wife having ...

I've heard it many times before - "Dogs don't have a sense of time." I'm now here to declare that that's nonsense! While I don't think dogs have as accurate a concept of time as humans, I think they have a much better concept of time than most people give them credit. When I walk out to get the mail or run a quick errand and I return, there's a 50/50 chance my dog will greet me wagging her tail and not even bother with saying hello. She'll be too cozy on her bed to feel the need to say hello yet again. When I was gone for about a full day on New Year's Eve to celebrate it with my girlfriend, my dog seemed a bit more excited in greeting me as I walked in the door. Last week, when I was away for an entire 6-7 days visiting family over Christmas, my dog started crying right as I walked in the door. She was crying off and on for about a half hour, I'd say. I'd never heard her do that before. So while dogs may not be able to meet a per...

I didn't see the dog memo that has obviously been passed around in Republican circles. Missouri Senatorial candidate Todd Akin recently compared his opponent - Claire McCaskill - to a dog. Now, word has broke that Iowa Congressman Steve King said the following at a town hall in May and just recently stood by those statements, in comparing immigrants to dogs: "You get the pick of the litter and you got yourself a pretty good bird dog. Well, we've got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet. We've got the vigor from the planet to come to America." I haven't personally seen this Republican dog memo, but in addition to comparing women and immigrants to them, I have a feeling the following dog comparisons were made in the memo: Muslims - "Don't Muslims eat dogs? Isn't that what is taught in that book of theirs? The Corn or whatever it's called? Well, you are what you eat, right? So, if that's true, they must be dogs!" Bl...

I love dogs. I've owned 3 in my 31 years and all have made for great pets. I had a cockapoo for 17 years (Rocky) and two huskies. One (Tasha) had to be put down last November, unfortunately and the other - Tara - is 11, but still acts like a puppy. Keeping that in mind, I really wish my neighbors (generalizing here) would keep a closer eye on their dogs. Now, Tara is as friendly as a dog can get. She's never snapped at anyone or anything before and I honestly can't see her every doing that. She's nothing but love (and weirdness). When someone does something to her she doesn't care for (like brush her, wash her, etc.), she licks them, as if to say, "Please stop. Please..." A year or two ago, as I was walking both she and Tasha around the neighborhood, a dog from two houses down came charging at her. Tasha was the bigger of the two - kind of the mommy figure - and stepped right in front of Tara and barked. The dog backed off a little bit. Tara, meanwhile, ...

The Mitt Romney dog incident has been traveling about the airwaves for a couple months now, I believe. It's been reported that upon taking a family vacation in 1983 I want to say (for a change, I'm too lazy to fact check this) and took their dog Seamus for a ride...on the roof of the car. Many dog groups were not happy upon hearing this news. So just the other day, the Romney camp let the world know that in President Obama's book "Dreams From My Father," he admitted to eating dog meat. He was 9-10 years old, living in Indonesia and this meat had been prepared for him by his superiors. So, there we have it. It's all about the dogs. Romney: 36-year old man who strapped the family dog to the hood of the car on a family trip. Obama: 9-10-year old boy who had dog meat prepared for him while living in Indonesia. Yeah, those two stories are comparable...not really. The thing is, America is a dog-loving country. We typically see these animals as pets, as friends...

It's amazing how attached we can get to our pets. They become like family after a while. Of course, when buying a pet, the last thing thought about is how attached we will get to these very animals and through that, how difficult it will be to say our final goodbye. I, unfortunately, had to do that yesterday with my dog Tasha. She was an all-white Siberian Husky. I'm not sure how old she was, as she was rescued. It appeared as if she had been abused by her original owner, but through the years had seemed to improve in comfort and spirit. At first, she couldn't stand affection, but slowly warmed up to that before in the past couple years, she was nosing my arms in order to garner some attention. So, I'd like to say she ended up being happy, much happier than she was for her first few years. It all happened so fast. She had battled arthritis for a little while, but still found it in herself to go for short walks with me and my other dog. She'd attempt to play around...

Well, following that threat my mom and I received at the expense of a crabby old man a while back as we walked our two dogs, to my surprise (kind of), my mom went back over to talk with him. When she came back home, she told me all about it, yet I kept hearing bits and pieces of new information as the day and night wore on. First off, she was telling me how he's actually a nice man (I don't believe this) and a lover of animals (I'm not sure about this either). But right when she stopped by, he was ranting about how if someone uses their dog to tease his dog, then he's going to use his dog to tease their dog. He continued to go off about how he's been watching me for 6 months and knows that I was teasing the dog next door and enjoying it. I was wearing a shirt that I dedicated to him and people like him. It's a picture of Stewie from the show "The Family Guy," where he says, "I'd love to stay and chat, but you're a total idiot." ...

I wonder what the likelihood is of men's age and crabbiness to increase alongside one another. I don't know the exact percentage, but with the old man I bumped into a few year's ago, that percentage is 100% (1 for 1...small sample size, I know). Directly behind our old house is a public horsetrail for people to ride their horses, walk their dogs or jog. We have two Siberian Huskies and if anyone knows anything about these kind of dogs, they need their share of exercise. Because of that, I try to take them for 3-4 walks a day. I've been doing this for I don't know how long now. Today, I walked (literally) into a situation I never had before. At around 1:00 PM central standard time, my mom and I took our two dogs for a walk. Every day, I take them eastbound and side-by-side, there are two houses with fences or gates that have dogs (go figure). The yard that's fenced in has an underground pool and a tan lab or retriever-looking dog. Regardless of how near or fa...

That's right, the film starring Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston and a dog named after Bob Marley saves families. I didn't know this until yesterday, when a friend of mine posted a status on Facebook asking if she was the only person to not like the movie and a friend of her's laid claim that because of that very movie, she and her family are closer than ever, that it in essence saved the family. Never in my life did I ponder for a moment, "Forget religion. Forget politics. Forget employment. Forget illness. Forget education. Forget vacation. What brings families together is 'Marley & Me'!" Okay, so perhaps I'm being a tad (very) sarcastic. I don't know this woman's story. In any case, I'm glad that she's doing better, as is the rest of her family. However, I still have trouble buying the tale that they were saved by this film. I can't help but laugh at the notion. Let me give some hypothetical examples that this woman's ...