Who’s the baddest dog?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/02/2012 (5004 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today I’m going to unveil an exciting new contest in a sincere and humanitarian effort to help our readers win valuable prizes with little or no effort on my part.

But first I need to issue another sincere apology because many readers were deeply offended by a column I wrote earlier this week in which, in an effort to keep screaming babies off commercial jetliners, I helpfully suggested new parents could just ship finicky infants via Canada Post.

Yikes! Talk about getting your diapers in a bunch! Sadly, instead of responding to this proposal on its intellectual merits, many readers responded with irate emails and online posts stating that (a) I am an insensitive fat tub of goo; and (b) Given the choice between sitting on an aircraft beside me or a shrieking baby, they would probably just strap themselves to one of the wings, provided they could still get service from the beverage cart.

In hindsight, I realize it was wrong to “kid around” in a “light-hearted manner” about such a serious issue. It was a stupid idea. The post office has enough trouble getting Christmas cards to the right address, let alone something as time-sensitive as a baby. Also, who has that many stamps lying around?

So I have once again learned my lesson. I have not seen so many angry emails and online comments since… well, since about two weeks ago when I offended the entire Scottish community in a column in which, after conducting a taste test on a can of haggis that had been lurking in the back of our pantry for two years, I stated the only ones who liked it were our two dogs.

Let me just say to the parents of newborns and readers of Scottish descent: I am truly sorry. In future, when I have to fly anywhere, I will demand to sit in the babies-only section and will insist on having canned haggis instead of stale peanuts as my complimentary in-flight snack.

OK, now that we’re all friends again, I’d like to give you the scoop on the exciting new contest I’m pretty sure I mentioned in the first paragraph.

I am going to call it the My Dog is Worse Than Your Dog Contest. The contest, in which you will have a chance to win some swell prizes I will talk about in a minute, was inspired by the response to a column I wrote after my wife and I returned home and discovered our wiener dog had eaten the bulk of our living-room carpet.

In that column, I also described how my sister-in-law’s new puppy, a beagle-basset hound cross named Norman, stole her purse and ate her MasterCard. It concluded with the story of a duck hunter in Utah who had 27 shotgun pellets removed from a medically sensitive area after being accidentally shot by his yellow Labrador retriever.

In response, I was deluged with phone calls and emails from highly competitive readers who wanted to make the central point their dogs were MUCH MUCH WORSE than any of the dogs I mentioned in the column.

Well, bad dog owners, here’s your big chance. What I want you to do is sit down at your computers right now (“Sit! Sit! Good owner!”) and, in as concise a manner as possible, tell me all about your dog’s bad behaviour. Feel free to email a picture, too.

Just to be clear, what we are talking about here is amusing anecdotes wherein your beloved pet has driven you to the brink of insanity, as opposed to actual criminal canine behaviour or terrorist activity. For example:

RIGHT — “We laughed and laughed when our chihuahua Fang ate the TV remote control and we had to watch the Weather Network for two straight weeks until the cod liver oil finally did the trick.”

WRONG — “We are thinking about hiring a lawyer due to the fact our postman has not been the same ever since our Bernese mountain dog ate most of his internal organs.”

I will subject the entries to an intense judging process in which I will read all of them to the guys in our business section who sit in the cubicles behind me. Then I will select my THREE favourites — which I’ll publish in an upcoming column — and award the three winners tickets to a cool concert or show, along with copies of my colleague Randy Turner’s awesome new book Back in the Bigs, which details Winnipeg’s journey back to the NHL.

Don’t forget to include your contact information and, please, remember to send your My Dog is Worse Than Your Dog entries via email, because Canada Post is pretty busy right now trying to figure out where that crying sound is coming from.

 

P.S. Anyone who sends me an actual baby will be immediately disqualified!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca