THE DOBERMAN: MEAN DOG OR INFERIOR OWNER?

We took Jackson the Super Beagle and Tucker the Linebacker to the dog park this last Sunday where a Doberman attacked a Bloodhound, clutching onto the hound's lip/ear/neck. Not sure if it drew blood, but the Bloodhound owner sets off the Doberman owner by running up on the melee and, with a fury, lashes the Doberman with his leach to pry him off of his hound.

The Doberman owner, who has lived a life of failure and has an aggressive disposition because of it, grabs his dog and turns to the Bloodhound owner saying, "Don't ___ing hit my dog, dude!" The bloodhound owner returns, "Your dog shouldn't be out here." Let the games begin.

After a heated exchange that about came to punches, the Doberman owner insists he's not leaving. You know, I can't imagine where the Doberman gets his attitude. This is a chicken/egg type of scenario. Is the Doberman aggressive because his owner is a loose cannon who drives a Toyota Trecel and flunked out of high school only to spend more money than he could afford on a "tribal" tattoo that he would later resent? Or because of the tribal tattoo, he knows he'll need a dog to protect him like Simba from Lion King so he gets a Doberman? Either way, this dude is a prick and further represents the Yellow's failures as responsible pet owners.

Well, the long and short of it is that, after some more choice words and another scuffle, the Bloodhound owner (either being the "bigger man" or the first to simply give up) leaves, but not without a few last words to the Doberman owner. The Doberman owner walks around and apologizes to everyone because he wanted to appear like a reasonable and fair person.

"I'm sorry about that folks, but my dog never acts like that and we're out here all of the time."

Funny how some apologies are not at all apologies.

Mayhem, who had his Boxer out there, hangs back and becomes a "friend" to the Doberman owner who, I guess, just thinks that Mayhem's an edgy cat with an inferiority complex like him because Mayhem wears Oakleys and alot of black clothing.

About fifteen minutes later, two Greater Swiss Mountain dogs show up. These dogs are closer to size of horses than dogs. The Doberman begins dancing around the park doing fly-bys on the Swissies. I speak with the woman who brought the Swissies and let her know that she needs to be on alert because the doberman had already attacked another dog. The lady turns around and beelines over to doberman dude and confronts him. "Did your dog attack another dog out here?"

"Ma'am, my dog bit another dog, but we're out here every week and it's never happened before. Dogs get in fights occassionally out here."

She returns, "Sir, you probably need to leave."

Before you could say "Michael Vick," the Doberman climbs up on a Swissy and attacks. The woman pulls out her leash and lashes the doberman on the back breaking his clutch on the Swissy and she begins yelling at him, "You need to leave." From the wings, I yell, "Yeah!" because I'm too much of a wuss to confront the dude myself.

Anyway. Doberman owner still refuses to leave and now, everyone's really bummed out and getting aggravated by this cat because he's clearly just trying to prove a point that he ain't leaving because he ain't wrong and his dog never acts like this so it's no problem.

You know, there are the kinda people who follow the posted rules and then there are the kinda people that have a broader set of rules they subscribe to. I know it might not say specifically that "Dobermans are not permitted," but as a Doberman owner who has witnessed his dog get into three different fights, wouldn't it be easy to just to say it's not your dog's best day and just leave? Well, to the thinking population that doesn't act like twelve year olds, yes. But that's not this guy. I hope he doesn't have kids because there's no room in Texas prisons.

UNWRITTEN DOG PARK RULE #1: If your dogs get into a fight, leave and come back at a later time. If, at that point, your dog gets into another fight, seek training and don't come back for a long time. It's possible that your dog does not want to socialize and is being forced into these uncomfortable situations. I would also suggest cutting off his testicles with garden shears, showing them to him and then throwing them in the alley. That tends to take the edge off of an otherwise aggressive dog.

UNWRITTEN DOG PARK RULE #2: Dogs come off the leashes in dog parks. Leaving them on the leash leads to a heightened level of anxiety and the likelihood of an act of aggression is proporationately increased. Think I'm making it up? Do the math, son.

UNWRITTEN DOG PARK RULE #3: Your Doberman attacks my dog, duke, it might not be my leash that I use to ward him off. I might just punch him in the head with the butt of my hand.

UNWRITTEN DOG PARK RULE #4: Don't crowd the entrance/exit. Walk around deep into the park. It gives the park space and greatly reduces the chance of a fight or scuffle because it prevents crowding of the greeting experience. You'll spot a lazy dog owner by the ones that walk into the dog park and then plant their ass five feet from the gate. The dog park is the size of almost three football fields and they clutch the entrance gate like a kid in the shallow end of the pool.

UNWRITTEN DOG PARK RULE #5: If your dog marks my dog (yes, it's happened), I'll mark you.

In other news, Celtics are off to their best start in franchise history at 21-2. This team is so freaking good, it's scary. Still wish they had James Posey, but the bench is playing well. The East sure has some contenders this year. It would appear that the East is starting to rise again. Cleveland's incredible this year. Orlando, always-dangerous Detroit, Atlanta--they're all playing good ball. Got a sixer of Sam Adams for Celtics versus Hornets tonight. Word 'em up.

To continue with sports talk: it looks like if you lose one game, you lose everything in college football. Understanding that we got murdered at Oklahoma, but Graham Harrell didn't even get invited to the Heisman ceremony. He got to go to Disney World for the College Football Awards, but ended up just shaking hands and getting a little camera time but only as Michael Crabtree took home the award for the nation's best receiver and gave him a shout.

Here are the statistics for Harrell:

4,747 yards/41 touchdowns/71.5% completed/7 interceptions

Sam Bradford:

4,464 yards/48 touchdowns/68.6% completed/6 interceptions

Colt McCoy:

3,445 yards/32 touchdowns/76.5% completed/7 interceptions

Tim Tebow:

2,515 yards/28 touchdowns/64.9% completed/2 interceptions

Not only does he statistically match up with the best in the nation, but he led the Red Raiders to the most successful campaign in school history, led a last-minute drive to beat the Longhorns (the first time that the Red Raiders have beat a #1-ranked team) and then leads a comeback against the Baylor Bears with two shattered fingers in his hand. Dude didn't even get an invitation to the ceremony. For a cat that threw for over 15,000 yards in three years, giving him a pat on the head before awarding him with a career in the Canadian Football League is so freaking awesome. Once again, I side with Leach who claims the "non"-invite of Harrell is just "politics over performance" where Texas, Oklahoma and Florida were all represented, but Texas Tech left off the list in the same way we went from the "sexy" pick all year until we were embarassed in Norman then we fell to a "not mentioned at all." They love you when you're hot.

The big ol' Cotton Bowl for us.

The Yankees continue to court every great player in the league for their 2009 campaign. They got CC and now they're looking at AJ Burnett, Ben Sheets, Jake Peavy and Mark Teixeira. Some one needs to tally up their potential payroll for a starting lineup. I'm sure it's incredible. It never ceases to amaze me that the Yankees will always attempt to basically buy their championships. I can't say that the Red Sox haven't been guilty of a bit of the same, but bargains like Pedroia, Paplebon, Ellsbury and Youkilis help disspell that attachment. That's a farm system, folks. Something the Yankees know very little about. Whatever. Something's gotta give and it always will. Their dream lineups that they've been throwing out there year after year are showing diminishing returns and Jeter and PayRod are only getting older. Amazing that despite their efforts, PayRod still has no championship.

Sox don't want Varitek back, but they make an offer just to appear fair to their captain. I know alot of people hoping he doesn't take it. Mark Teixeira would mean losing Mike Lowell who won a World Series MVP in 2007 only to possibly end his career sitting on the bench with injury. Lugo for Eric Byrnes makes good sense to me, but as a fourth outfielder (see bottom right)? Maybe we get rid of JD Drew too and trade him in for some pitching to replace the now not-so ageless Mike Timlin. At least we still have Youkilis at either first or third, Bay, Papi, Beckett, Paplebon, Ellsbury, Drew and reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia coming back as the the youthful core. But it's gonna take some bats to compete against that Yankee pitching.

Is hip hop dead? I don't know but if it means anything, probably the worst records of the year were turned in from Common and Kanye. I mean, they're straight butthole. I wanted to say I just wasn't in the mood, but listened to them later and, yep, still suck. Either hip hop is dead or I'm just out of touch. Maybe both.

The name of the game is Funkadelic. I recommend some for everyone.