I’m what one would call a ‘dog person.’ If you are not a ‘dog person,’ then you’re probably going to think by the end of this column that I’m what one would call a ‘crazy person.’ If you are neither of these, but rather a ‘cat person,’ then you can go straight to H-E-double hockey sticks. Well, not really. But seriously, go there.
Getting back on track, one of the fun things about being a ‘dog person’ is that dogs do indeed seem to instinctively run towards me, be it because they want a belly-rub, an ear-scratch or because they’re part of a trained K-9 unit. This was always a weird thing considering I’m allergic to dogs. Consequently, my childhood was a twisted kind of H-E-double hockey sticks that involved running away from puppies, seeing-eye canines and the dreaded McGruff.
But then, one day, my mother woke me up on a Saturday morning and told me she had discovered a ‘hypo-allergenic’ dog, which is apparently a pet in possession of the same qualities as our Oreck vacuum cleaner. Another similarity? Neither one sucks.
Anyway, this dog was a pure-bred Bichon Frise from Iowa. For those of you who don’t know, the Bichon Frise is a manly beast with the strength and power of 12 Huskies. For those of you who actually do know the truth, the Bichon Frise is a poodle-like creature whose French name translates literally to ‘curly lap dog.’ My mom named her ‘Noodle’ because she wanted my brother, father and I to stammer and try to change the subject when asked by fellow men about the family pet.
I digress. I make mention of all this because just two days ago, my dad created a Facebook page for Noodle. A cursory look at her profile taught me, among other things, Noodle is a Roman-Catholic, her interests involve “food” and she graduated from Algonquin Regional High School in 1988 – particularly odd considering she’s five years old. Apparently, she’s also politically-affiliated with the Independent Citizen’s Movement, a party formed in 1968 with the intent of granting greater autonomy to the US Virgin Islands. I had no idea.
In response, my brother, Dennis, did the adult thing and immediately created a Twitter page for the dog. Recent updates include “what was that outside? i better bark for a while so everyone knows to look,” “maybe the humans will leave me alone in the house today so i can listen to talk radio” and “man i love smelling things.” Well, at least I’m not the only McNamara publishing bizarre information to the internet.
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