Dogster a Facebook for canines

[flashl]

Hey Spot, You’ve Got Mail

SOMETIMES I think Otto is a goat.

Actually, he is a Labrador retriever. But he eats everything, including pizza boxes, candy wrappers on the sidewalk and, once, an entire layer of fresh-baked banana cake that was cooling on a high shelf in the pantry. I still am not sure how he got to it without a stepladder.

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Not long ago, I would have relied on traditional sources of wisdom to solve this problem, seeking advice from the vet (who said, after Otto put his muzzle on her lap and looked at her pleadingly, that he was a “good, good boy” and “misunderstood”) and from a dog owners’ mailing list I’ve subscribed to for years. But after the list’s respondents decided the problem was me — the consensus was that a better dog owner could easily teach Otto to “leave it” — I started to get desperate.

That is how I ended up at an online social network called Dogster, where my plan was to ask for help after I joined the site.

Or, I should say, after Otto and Sticky joined.

Think of Dogster as Facebook for canines. There, my dogs (along with 346,639 other four-legged members, as of last week) had their own profile pages that listed their likes and dislikes, personal mottoes — Otto’s is “Are you going to finish that?” — and best tricks (“catching seedless grapes in mid-air”).

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For those who do not pick up on the "nuance" this is NOT a dog bashing post.