Things are always so much cuter when they’re little… like me for instance.  Sure I would be cute if I was a huge 100 lb dog.  But I’m even cuter as an 8 lb puppy!  I don’t want to sound so full of myself so consider this… what human doesn’t melt when you see a newborn baby?!  You all do it.  Sure my master refuses to hold any of these adorable little babies but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think they’re cute.  He just doesn’t want them to get too attached to him ;)  He knows his puppy is # 1 in his book. 

I’m sure you all have your soft spot for the small things.  Just don’t pick on us little folks when deep down you know how cute we are!  Am I right?!  Things are always so much cuter when they’re little?!  Fill in the blank with ANYTHING in the following question and I think you’ll agree… Who doesn’t like a minature version of __________ ?  See, no matter what you put in the blank the answer is the same, you absolutely love minature stuff!  Just like all those ladies that collect the minature figurines.  We don’t know what to do with them, but we love ‘em!

Rub my belly, leave me some comments!

I don’t know much about football so pardon my puppy-like ignorance.  I was hanging out at the house this past week reading the paper while my master was at work (go ahead and ask my master what I do on the newspaper while he’s gone) and I see that the Bengals are starting training camp.  I’m relieved to know that these guys go through a training camp before the beginning of the season because (nothing personal but…) some of these guys are really out of shape.

Then I see the words Who Dey in the paper.  Well, I’m not even sure that one of these is a word - dey?  I don’t see how this is something to chant when you are trying to cheer for a team.  It sounds more like a question.  Any statement that begins with who, what, where, when, or why is probably going to end in a question mark.  Why would you yell questions at your team. 

Ok, so my master tells me this saying is derived from some local beer.  As a puppy I’m not yet old enough to drink.  Perhaps when I turn 3 (or 21 in people years) I will understand this cheer a little better.  Maybe these people are just trying to get the beer man’s attention during the game. 

Rub my belly, leave me some comments!

I’m sure most of us would agree that Lassie really paved the way for animal actors in America.  I mean, the dog had its own self-titled show.  At least Lassie paved the way for us canines.  Mr. Ed was there to help the equestrian folks out but for us pups, we really look up to the old sheep herder as a pioneer.  After Lassie (the tv show) we still had to wait quite a while till we got Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop and the German Shepherds just don’t do the acting gig quite as well as the rest of us.  Let’s face it, Rinny wasn’t exactly a canine version of McGuiver or anything.  But I guess Lassie (the dog) set the bar pretty high for the rest of us… I mean, the dog knew how to get a kid out of well… think about that for a second.  We send entire fire departments out to do that kind of stuff these days!

Sure we’ve had some film success, too, so our canine qualities are not just limited to after school specials and sit coms.  I have heard many good things of the feature dogs in Turner & Hooch, 101 Dalmations, Beetoven (all million editions of them!), Air Bud (once again, a slew of movies with deviated titles), Milo & Otis, and Lady & the Tramp.  I could go on and on about how we have propped up the film industry for years… working for literally scraps.

After Rin Tin Tin, we really didn’t see a great stand out canine in show business until Frasier came along.  Eddie, the dog on the show, provided the comic relief.  Without him, it would have been a lifeless show about pyschology and a series of one mid-life crisis after another.  Eddie, whose real name was Moose, was a Jack Russell Terrier that I admire for his decade-long career in show business.  May he rest in peace.

It’s because of my admiration of Moose, and even his son Enzo who also made appearances on Frasier in his dad’s place from time to time, that I have decided to launch my film career.  I intend on auditioning for a role in the upcoming movie Joy.  It was recently announced that this movie would be (at least partially) filmed here in the greater Cincinnati area.  I will keep you updated on my attempts at launching my film career.  Perhaps I will also evaluate my options for a singing career, too.

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I constantly struggle with this concept of eternity.  Why am I wasting so much time being good (other than the immediate gratification that Beggin Strips provides), if I get to go to heaven anyway?!  Perhaps I am missing the fine print.  What if all dogs don’t go to heaven?!  Is there a puppy purgatory?!  Are bad dogs sent back to earth to serve a 7 life prison sentence as a cat… 

Perhaps I am being too philosophical about all this, but I like the idea that when I finally chew my last bone it will only lead me to a place that has an endless supply of rawhide.  With no way of knowing I guess the only thing I can do is make the best of my time here on earth and wag my tail to the fullest.

Speaking of waggin’ the ‘ol tail… not to toot my own horn or anything, but please take note that I have a few new pictures to share with you.  I would like to personally thank and lick my good friend Ariane for snapping these photos and emailing them to me. 

As I continue to post more photos I realized that most of these are just glamour shots of me.  That being said, I would like to start getting some group photos up here… that means that when I see you guys, whether it’s at my house or around town, we need to get a photo together so I can put it on the website and save it in my Book of Scraps.  I know you humans call it a scrapbook but I’m a dog… I save scraps… hence, it’s a book of scraps.  Table scraps… now those are my favorite.  If you could, bring me some of those when you come over.  We’ll snap some photos and take our pictures, too!  It’ll be a great time!  Rub my belly, leave me some comments…

It seems like ever since I started this website I have been receiving more attention, treats, and petting.  Those things are nice, and I thank you all that have sent emails and visited my website, but WOOF sometimes the attention can get to you.

I had an incident happen to me lastnight when I was in the bathtub.  Now I can sympathize with the plight of Nick Lachey for having racy photos published of me.  Like Nick, Miss New Jersey, and Paris my rights have been violated but I feel it’s best to get out ahead of the media circus and deprive those people trying to profit from my body from having the benefit of doing so.  Therefore, I am taking the initiative to go ahead and publish the photos so that the world can see them and the person responsible for taking the photos cannot profit from it.

Here they are, I understand this is the cost associated with my fame and I’m comfortable enough with my body to share these with the world:

Rub my belly… leave me some comments!

Guess what this is?!  If you said a hamburger you are sorely mistaken.  In fact, to call the above pictured item ”meat” at all would probably be incorrect.  This… is Turkey Burger.  Follow up question: what is the one prohibited use of turkey (the actual meat)?  If you answered Turkey Burger! then you are correct!  Go ahead and wag your tail a little if you got that one right! 

Now… how do you spot a sucker at the grocery store or in a restaurant?  It’s the schmuck eating a turkey burger… and someone needs to bite his or her ankle.  These people need to know that turkey burger is not a suitable use for meat, and certainly not fit for consumption.  I’m a puppy and even I know that!!! 

I would never expect you to believe that my Beggin Strips treats are actually made out of bacon… sure, they’re the closest thing that I ever get to real human food but please, if you’re going to destroy meat at least give it to me instead of defiling perfectly good, eatable meat. 

At least I know when I walk up to my bowl in the morning that the food I am about to consume was never really something good that I could’ve possibly enjoyed.  BARK No, it was previously some leftover scraps from a meat packing plant, maybe some chickens that would no longer lay eggs, crippled horses and ponies, a little rice to hold everything together and presto! you have puppy chow! 

Why do you think they call it puppy chow?!  Chow is a word of Chinese origin dating back to around 1886 (Chinese Pidgin English according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, whatever those big words mean)… the dog food is imported from China (remember those news articles about them sending us tainted puppy food!)… You people…. scratch that… you Americans never cease to amaze me.  You buy your puppy food from a country where they eat puppies… hmm, this doesn’t sound like a good idea.  They call it chow because there are probably some actual Chow Chow puppies mixed in.

Let’s learn something from this tainted dog food debacle.  Let’s not turn perfectly good turkey into a confection called turkey burger and let’s not import our dog food from a country where the eat dogs.

Editorial Note:  I cannot claim ownership of or take credit for the Turkey Burger Photo posted above.  This was found by using Google and searching for Turkey Burger.  I came across a website called Off the Broiler.  The Website’s author is Jason Perlow.  He has some good stuff on there.  Check him out, then go make a fancy dish, put the fancy dish in the car, and come visit me!

Rub my belly, leave me some comments…

Ok, just in case you can’t tell… this is not a picture of me.  I had to clear that up first.  I found this picture out on the Internet and I just want to say this is wrong.  The long and short of the above photo and situation is this… Puppies are not hot dogs or sandwiches.  That being said, wow this is funny! 

This poor kid is going to have to try to live this down the rest of his life.  When he brings home some nice young lady his master is going to bust out these baby photos and embarrass the living WOOF out of him.  I can’t help but snicker because I know if this poor puppy’s master was willing to go through this much trouble to waste a hoagie bun on getting this photo, then he or she probably also named the dog something really uncreative and lame like Oscar or Footlong or something.  I’m glad I was named after a cool sounding bean.  Man, I am one lucky puppy.  You often take for granted how good you have it till you see what other people put their puppies through. 

I highlighted the word snicker in the paragraph above because it reminded me of a good story that my master told me.  His friend Erin told him about this.  Erin has a friend that use to live in Lindenwald. 

For those of you not from around here, this is a neighborhood with a lot of big dogs… like Aggie, a bloodhound that I recently had the chance to go visit in this very same neighborhood. 

But back to the story… Erin’s friend in Lindenwald had a dog named Snickers and also had some neighbors that were a little darker skin tone than his own pasty white master.  (Note: Hey, my dad was black and my mom was red, I can deal with diversity!) 

One day Snickers got loose in the neighborhood, probably chasing one of those fiesty bags of fur (cats) or something, and Erin’s friend went out on the front porch and proceeded to yell “Snickers… here Snickers!!!” over and over again along with some whistling, etc.  Apparently the word Snickers (when yelled with a Lindenwald draw) sounds a lot like a racially charged derogatory term.  Needless to say, Snickers moved soon after that incident to the west side of Hamilton, Ohio.

Ok, that was the story… if you didn’t get it, yell “Snickers” outloud a few times or say it really fast several times.  So, back to the photo posted above…

Posting the above photo of that poor puppy inspired me to go ahead and update my website with some new photos.  I have taken the opportunity to create a new page and add captions to my photos.  There will be more photos uploaded soon, once I get my lazy master off his rear to upload them to the Internet from his little plastic box that captures by beautiful likeness.  He calls it a “camera”… I think it’s just another toy that I should get to chew on since it’s always snapping photos of me.  It’s obviously something for me since he always gets it out whenever we go somewhere.

http://www.garbanzothedog.com/photos

Feel free to leave me ideas of where I should get more pictures taken or what types of “action scenes” you would like to see!  Rub my belly, leave me some comments!

I have to make a confession.  I’ve been led astray.  Sheepishly I followed other canines in my neighborhood who are much older than I, and since they are older, I blindly followed them and believed every word they said.  I would try to place blame somewhere else or say something like well, I’m just human, everyone makes mistakes! but I’m not human.  The neighborhood dogs told me that cats are evil.  They told me cats are out to bring us dogs down.  This could not be further from the truth.  Cats are perfectly ok, and we need them.

It turns out that cats are just lovable little fur balls like us dogs.  We have our differences of course: dog is man’s best friend, cats are lazy bags of fur.  But we have a lot in common, like how we both enjoy meat and our mutual love of trees… cats to climb in and us dogs to chew on.

What prompted this big change of heart in me you ask?!  Well, I just read a nice article about a fellow long-haired Dachshund who, being a lovable and adorable creature like myself, has taken it upon her own accord to raise and nurture a poor, defenseless kitty.

This article on Yahoo! was first published in the Victoria, Texas newspaper:  Lillie, a three year old Dachshund, has been nursing Tahoe, the kitten, since Lillie’s owner found Tahoe hiding in… of all places… her Chevy Tahoe.

 I think it’s important to put aside our differences and realize that we’re all in this crazy game of Life together, and we need each other to help survive and prosper.  I’m ready to put aside my differences with the cats and work toward peace and harmony.  We need to team together against the Bob Barkers of the world to increase our quality of life.

 Who’s with me?!  Rub my belly… leave me some comments!

I found this little public service announcement on the Internet.  I think this is just some propoganda that was put out there by those Bible-thumping Menonites.  But I can’t help but sit here chewing on my ducky and hoping that it’s true.  Seeing those killer creatures running after that tabbie is a precious sight.   Let’s all do our part to make sure we help control the cat population.  Oh how I can’t stand these creatures.  They would be very tolerable, in fact I would even love having them around, without those razor blade nails on the end of their paws. 

Today is trash day.  You know what that means… buffet during my evening walk!  It’s shaping up to be a good week. 

 Oh, and by the way, I know I mis-spelled pinata.  But I don’t have thumbs so I can’t figure out how to get the tilde above the “n”.  Sorry, I’m just a dog. 

 Rub my belly, leave me some comments.

My master often gets frustrated with me on our long walks around the lake at Winton Woods.   I don’t get out of the house much, since someone feels the need to leave from 8 to 5 every day during the week.  And when I do get to go outside, I like to go exploring.  Life is too short to walk around with your nose in the air like your some kind of Cockapoo or Shitzadoodle.  Sorry, it was hard to find an article/picture of a shitzadoodle… if you click on the name you have to scroll down the page to the “Happy Ending” on August 12th, 2004… yeah, Happy Ending.  I know, I know… a Happy Ending for a Shitzadoodle.  The thought of it bothered me too. 

 Anyway, considering I am only 6 inches off of the ground and have a heightened sense of smell I think it’s only fair that my master cuts me a little slack and let’s me investigate things that I come across during our walk.  That, and I like to eat ants so he could allow me that one vice.  I know I’m slow… it takes us nearly an hour and a half to walk around the lake at Winton Woods.  But I have short legs and I need to stop and smell the turf every hundred feet or so.  What do you people think?  Is it fair to keep me trapped in the kitchen all day and then expect me to do a lap around the woods in a half an hour?! 

Let me know what you think I can do to keep the master from breaking my neck by pulling on my leash when we’re out walking!!!