Friday Musical Interlude - Green Day done cute style.

An acoustic cover of Green Day's Boulevard of Broken Dreams, along with a bonus of cute dog.

Pay It Forward Friday - Prepare to tear up

This story might make you tear up but only because it is a wonderful story about caring - in this case, about an older dog.

Skunk vs. Dog (a personal, non-political anecdote)

Last night our dog decided to get drenched in skunk spray.  My eyes are still watering, and I'm pretty sure they did as I slept last night too.  As an FYI, apparently tomato juice is not the best solution for dogs.  Google was helpful in our discovering of that fact (more on that later).  I have to admit, the panic in our house at the awful odor was pretty funny, even in the midst of it.

Not our dog but a remarkable lookalike.

The dog upon coming inside when I called him (there's a first for everything) decided the best thing to do would be to rub his face all over the carpet that we had just steam cleaned on Saturday.  My wife grabbed him as quickly as she could and headed to the bathtub.  I headed for the tomato juice and my son started opening windows, including ones in the area we think the skunk was at. Luckily the skunk was likely long gone by that point.

When my son was done opening the windows, that's when he noticed me pouring tomato juice into a bowl and stopped me. He told me what he had learned from my dad when the same thing had happened to his dog while my son was visiting a few summers ago. He quickly looked up the solution on his phone because he remembered a peroxide/dish-soap/baking soda solution. (a quick search confirmed it).  It turns out that mix works very well at getting the dog scent free.  While we were bathing the dog, I told my son to work on the carpet where the dog had rubbed his face.  

Our dog is a papillon and has long hair.  They are a small breed and look like drowned rats when they are bathed.  A picture of that would definitely cause you a chuckle, unfortunately we were too busy to snap a picture.  

It was cold enough here last night for frost, but we had to keep the windows open for a while.  I don't know why the house filled up with the scent so strongly, but it did.  The smell is gone from dog and the carpet, but it just seemed to float in the air overnight and I think lingered this morning as well. I can't tell today at work if I smell like skunk or it is just in my own nostrils.  My co-workers said they can't smell it, but they are nice people and could just be trying to spare my feelings.  That's the Canadian thing to do.

Luckily our little guy did not get sprayed in the eyes, but he's not the brightest bulb so I doubt he'll be taking away any insights from his back yard encounter.  I on the other hand have learned to check the yard before letting the dog out at night.  It hasn't been a problem in the past, but that doesn't matter now.  Live and learn.

In any case, my blogging will be a little slower than normal today and tomorrow as a short term result.  I'm itching to write a bunch of stuff but I haven't had the time and this skunk incident has done nothing to help the amount of time I have available. 

A really touchy subject - police versus dog

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've always been more of a conservative than libertarian.  But I think there is a pretty big intersection between the two when it comes to individual liberty.  The conservative view on law enforcement is tied to the rule of law.  Breaking laws is bad and should be subject to persecution.  The libertarian view on law enforcement is probably similar but with the major caveat that laws are meant to be as minimally invasive as possible, and so as few as necessary should exist.  In that regard, I'd say I lean more libertarian than conservative.  Or maybe small government conservative would be the best description.

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No matter your political bent, authorities are always susceptible to abuse of power.  That seems to be the case in this really touchy video (if you love dogs or are sensitive, don't watch it).

A man apparently was arrested, and his dog shot, both without sufficient cause.  The apparent motive of police was that he was videoing police activity.  Or he was too close to the police perimeter.  Or he was non-compliant. Or that he has a civil suit against the Hawthorne police already.  Or something else.

Warning - graphic video.

Via the Libertarian Republic, you can see the entire story here.  There's a lot of information on the story there, including other videos of the incident from different angles.

Police appear to have abused their powers in this instance - a complete over-reaction that is not justified.  If the details in the story prove accurate, the police should be fired or suspended.  The police department should have to pay compensatory and punitive damages as well.  None of it unfortunately, will bring back the dog.

The Dog Days Are Over

Here I was ready to completely ignore the dog stories about both Romney and Obama as trivial distractions until I saw this video by Bill Whittle which takes a long but valuable route to explain a simple point that the dog stories, actually do matter.

So, while the dog days are over for the media now, let me add my two voice to Whittle's - you want to talk dogs liberal media - okay, let's talk dogs.