Kyoto vs. Cheddar - Political Pet Showdown

Inspired in part by CalgaryGrit's open call for summer competition suggestions and a well-placed e-mail, I have decided to tackle the question on all Canadians' minds as they fire up the grill: Who would win? Stéphane Dion's dog Kyoto or Stephen Harper's cat, Cheddar?

First let's meet the competitors:


Kyoto: After the Liberals were sacked in 2006, Dion adopted the white husky and named it after the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto is an instinctual killer who's bound only to his master by the subversion of his pack-instincts through domestication. The dog received much buzz once Dion won the Liberal leadership, with some arguing that the dog had acquired a greater profile than his master. Kyoto also maintains his own blog with a tendency to echo Conservative talking points in both English and French, including bashing France (in both English and French). I find this curious.


Cheddar: It is unclear whether Cheddar is named after a town, a cheese, or an international treaty. What is known about Cheddar's checkered (marbled?, ed.) past, is that this cat walked the hard streets of Ottawa from its first day breaking out of Momma Cheddar's litter. Those dark, cold nights taught Cheddar the hard ways of canal-hopping, picking at discarded Beaver Tails, hustling tourists and paying up to always-collectin' civil servants. Cheddar was adopted into the Harper household once former cat, Cabot, died of excitement of moving from Stornaway to 24 Sussex. He is Laureen Harper's lovemuffin.

THE FIGHT
Cheddar comes out of the gate swinging...er, scratching. Kyoto is marching purposefully -- in circles? Cheddar lands a first scratch: 'Your master is not a leader!'. The judges award points. Kyoto lifts its head: 'Your master is a liar!', but Cheddar is too low to the ground and scampers under Kyoto's belly. Cheddar then avoids Kyoto until the judges insist he do something, dodging left and right expertly.
'Your master is out of touch with Canadians.'
'No, your master is out of touch with Canadians!'
'You're a prop meant to humanize your master for the voting public!'
'No, you're a prop meant to humanize your master for the voting public!'

Hours later...

'You were adopted to overcome your master's tragic loss'
'No, you were adopted to overcome your master's tragic loss'
With this, Cheddar scampers under Kyoto. And then, just before he's about to give Kyoto a lesson from the Bob Barker school in pet-care -- ROBOMANATEENo matter what, Robo-Manatee wins. Kyoto and Cheddar are off to meet Pat the Posthumous Policy Pooch, Mackenzie King's ol'friend.

For more on political pets go here.

It Appears that the Tables have Turned...

Alas, all of my campaigning for dog plastic-bag rights was for naught. My furry ex-friends have turned on me, and taken the one thing I've been training to do for years, something that would propel me into the good kind of infamy...

... famy.

Indeed, dogs have learned to smell cancer. The Vancouver Sun reported yesterday that Freeman, a rare leopard dog, sniffed at his owner's right breast until it, in the words of owner Darcy Ingram, "swelled up like a cantaloupe."

Freeman is proving what captial "S" Scientists published in the March 2006 issue of Integrative Cancer Therapies: That dogs can smell cancer on the breath of breast cancer and lung cancer patients.

While I have to applaud the canine ability to sniff out breast cancer, I can smell lung cancer from a mile away. It's called a Marlboro, pooch, get with it.

Even still, it looks like the dogs are one-upping me on this one. They can smell bladder cancer in urine, and skin cancer in "skin lesions" (I put this in quotes because I have no fucking idea what skin lesions are, and I doubt very much that the dogs do, either).

What really worries me is the disturbing series of events before and after Ingram's successful treatment. She reported, that, prior to her knowing about the some 12 centimetres of tumours brewing in her breast, Freeman "wouldn't leave that breast alone."

And, more recently, she had said, "Freeman can do whatever he wants." Um, I think it's obvious what Freeman wants to do.

Be a total dog-perv, that's what.

Robo-Manatee: Update!

'Doggie Bag' Takes on Whole New Meaning

And we thought San Francisco was bad.

Today, the CBC reported that a committee from Toronto City Council is currently debating the change of the classic slogan "Poop and Scoop" to the much less catchy "Poop, Scoop, and Carry."

What does this mean for city dog owners? Proponents of this new idea, like Councillor Paula Fletcher, would have pooch walkers not only pick up after their pets, but carry the steaming bag with them until they get home. Her recommendation is that owners throw the refuse into their green bins, designed to collect resident organics, like food, popcorn bags, and now, dog crap.

Fletcher's "best" idea so far? Letting squeamish walkers "plac[e the waste] somewhere to be picked up on the way home" - clearly putting a plastic bag of shit on a park bench or monument is less disgusting or, as Fletcher says, "aesthetically pleasing," than, as she puts, "when you walk in a park and there's a [waste] basket and there's dangling white bags of dog poo there."

The suggestion itself surfaced after the 2006 waste audit showed that 23-27% of all park trash was dog waste. However, illegally dumped materials made up 10-15% of the waste. Hello? Illegally dumped materials? Shouldn't we be telling people to take their illegally dumped materials home with them? Let's get serious here - are dog owners ever going to get a break?

It's days like these I'm ashamed to be called a Torontonian... Torontoite? What the hell are we?