Dogs: The Ensmarteration!

This is part three in a never ending series in which we taunt Gramsci Cat!

Well, smarty farty cat, guess what SCIENCE says! Dogs are SMARTERER than CATS! Read it HERE! Our brains have evolved at a super fast rate because we are social animals: "This suggests the co-operation and co-ordination needed for group living can be challenging and over time some mammals have evolved larger brains to be able to cope with the demands of socialising.” Look at us engaging in brain growing activities here!

You can practically SEE our brains growing here!

See, here is Mr. Science saying some things about our enbiggened brains!

Dr Shultz added: “All dogs are quite good at solving problems, which gives credence to the traditional image of the cunning fox which is a member of the same family. Dogs descended from wolves which appear to have the biggest brains as they live in large family groups.”

Look at Edgrr, the cunning fox! Kicking ass, taking names, solving problems!

The Cat is Back and It's Gonna Be in Trouble

(Photo via.) Remember Gramsci the "intellectual" cat (oxymoron) from a few posts ago? Well, through one of his naked ape emissaries he sent us this story from the NYT bragging that cats > dogs. What is the article about?

What happens is that the cat darts its tongue, curving the upper side downward so that the tip lightly touches the surface of the water.

The tongue is then pulled upward at high speed, drawing a column of water behind it.

Just at the moment that gravity finally overcomes the rush of the water and starts to pull the column down — snap! The cat’s jaws have closed over the jet of water and swallowed it.

Uh, so, cats drink water. Congratulations. You totally deserve the Nobel Prize in physics or something. We do just fine with our slurpitude.

Oh yes, that's my backsplash on the porch AND the screen. Style points, baby.

A Tail of Betrayal

These are the times that try dogs' bowls souls. Our ma ape is about to start working on the index of her book (Our suggested title: Four Dogs is Not Nearly Enough). But as we were reading her Facebook wall we discovered she had received an application from this dude:

WHAT!!??!?! It's a cat! Who thinks he is smart because his name is GRAMSCI! And because he has a most refined gardening blog instead of one focused on food, humping, and shark face games. (And who is larger than Edgrr so the Grrr'd better mind his Ps and Qs.) We are most offended that we were not asked!

After all, we are clearly towering intellectuables.

We work hard on our mentals stimulations.

And know a great deal about the business end of apes.

We're reporting this to Human Resources. Clearly an error has been made.

Now we're MAD!

Our ma ape went to New York City and all she brought us back were these lousy photos (and some cookies from Sophie!). She went to the Big City for the Dogs With Blogs FIRST Annual Meet-up. First, she met with a beeeee---yooooo-tiful lady, the hostess with the mostest, ASTA!

And she stayed in a hotel with movie posters. This must be a Horror Film--KITTENS WITH WHIPS!

And then. AND THEN!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! NYC is FILLED with monsters! Maybe it is best we did not go.

A Letter to Cats

Dear Cats,

Science told me something. We're smarter than you. Oh, don't feel bad. LOLCats are pretty funny, if sadly reflective of your mental (in)capacity:

The [cats] were tested in three ways, using a single baited string, two parallel strings where only one was baited, and two crossed strings where only one was baited.

The single string test proved no problem, but unlike dogs (which Osthaus has previously tested) no cat consistently chose correctly between two parallel strings. With two crossed strings, one cat always made the wrong choice and others succeeded no more than might be expected by chance.

Osthaus, of Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, said: "This finding is somehow surprising as cats regularly use their paws and claws to pull things towards them during play and hunting. They performed even worse than dogs, which can at least solve the parallel string task."

Much love and pity,

Wally T. Corgador

The Most Important Pawlitical Ad of the Season

I saw this ad and I thought you should probably see it. Snoop Wally dooo--ooooo----ooog!

Doggone Crazy

A golden retriever at a Kansas zoo has adopted a litter of white tiger cubs after their mum abandoned them.

It's cute but I don't want any cats getting any ideas about MY food. Mine. Don't touch. I could take a whole pack of tigers if it came to that.

What a Week!

I'm very busy. And, frankly, I've been uncertain how to follow The Perfect Snaggle. After all, where do you go from the top? But I carry on. To remind you, perfection in one upturned lip:



I also have been busy because we have VISITORS this week. A naked ape who went to PhDog school with my apes is staying tonight. To get ready for new apes in my house I've been practicing my ape killing. See:



And then on Friday my nemesis Katya's parents are coming to visit. Katya is a goddamn cat who sometimes comes to my blog to post mean and scandalous things. Well, Katya, he who gets his belly rubbed last laughs loudest! Yes, your apes will have their filthy paws all over me this weekend! You wait and SEE! Hey Katya, I got something to tell you...


No, get a little closer.


Closer--I don't want to scare you by shouting.


SMOOOOOOOOOOCH!


Haha! You guys fall for that every time. You've been WALLYSMOOCHED! P.S. Katya, please send some kitty nonpareils with your apes.

I would like to snack on kitty poo during some FOOTBALL because also this weekend one of my teams the Delaware Blue Hens (mmmm...tasty!) are playing for the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP in the I-AA football! This is YouDee, the Blue Hen. She would make some tasty meaty bones, don't you think? Um, they call YouDee "he" but hey appear to be confused about the nature of "hens." Some gender confusion in their mascotage, I think. Go Blue Hens!



This is one busy week! And my ma ape has loads and loads of grading to do. I offered to help by eating her homework. I'm always so helpful! If she would finish her darn grading we could get to sending my holiday cards! I want to put a little yellow snow in each card. The ape has nixed that but is considering letting me pee on the pile of papers that were turned in on Monday. Ah, the art of compromise.

New Recipe!

My granny loves me and she sent me this article that I think was a hint to my ma ape that she needs to bust out her new stew pot. It is about how in Australia they are COOKING feral cats!

I asked my ma ape to whip me up a batch of stew but I couldn't hear her answer through the retching noise:

Preparing this unusual stew seems simple enough.

The meat should be diced and fried until it is brown. Then lemon grass is to be added along with salt and pepper and three cups of quandong, which is a sweet desert fruit.

It is recommended that the dish be left to simmer for five hours before being garnished with bush plums and mistletoe berries.

Marinated moggie was not to everyone's taste. One of the competition judges found the meat impossibly tough and had to politely excuse herself and spit it out in a backroom.

More Animal News

There's big things afoot in the animal world.

First, thanks to Suki for covering this story about Oscar the homicidal cat. Oh, the humans think it's so cool that this cat seems to know when people die and it will get in bed with them until they pass. But Suki knows the score--obviously the cat is killing them!

To fight the cats we will need big firepower. I think we should recruit Joey, the chihuahuahuahuahuahua who saved a baby from a rattlesnake.

But more importantly we must scare them with the randy hordes of hedgehogs from Deutschland!

German police called to investigate unusual noises in the garden of a Bremen house late on Monday were surprised to find that a pair of amorous hedgehogs were to blame.

The hedgehog breeding season runs from April to September and their lovemaking is typically accompanied by very loud puffing and snorting, usually by the female as she tries to ward off the male.

The Origins of Evil

The NYT has an article about DNA tests they think show the origins of today's housecats go back 10,000 years to the Near East, around the same time grains were domesticated and cats were valuable for managing mice and rat populations. Here is a classic case of how "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" can go wrong. You befriend these goddamn cats in order to get rid of the rats. Now who will get rid of the cats! Couldn't we learn from this in our foreign policy?

Oh no! Gonzo Cats!

My onkel Eric sent me this LOLCat. Oh my dog. They're reading Hunter Thompson. Dog help us all of they ever get guns. And acid.

get real

Animal Planet is planning to air a cat-version of Big Brother, filming cats as they compete in such daunting tasks as catching toy ice and purring. Oooh, sounds exciting (can you detect sarcasm over a blog?) Will they also have contests--who has the stinkiest litter? Who can get away from Wally when he chases you (survival of the fittest)? Who horks up the biggest furball?

Phhbt. They give cats a reality tv show and not ME? Sure I sleep at least 18 hours out of the day but 1) i'm exciting when I sleep (seriously. i snore, grunt, and bark AND sometimes I chase things in my sleep and 2) the other 6 hours are rockin', usually involving me finding ways to get food.

terrorist cell discovered in doggy door

dear homeland security,

i would like to alert you to the formation of a new terrorist organization, though i doubt it is really organized since it would be like herding cats. pun intended. there appears to be an epidemic of fat cats raiding the food bowls of unsuspecting dogs. hercules has been all the rage in the news lately after getting stuck in a doggy door in oregon because he was so damned fat. we dogs require greater food security. we feel constantly terrorized by the goddamn cats and, frankly, i have been losing valuable beauty rest vigilantly guarding my food dish.

so, since you are not so good at the planning, especially exit strategies, i would like to suggest the following. kindly employ my sister ethel who is a mindless chasing machine (this morning she tried to chase her shadow for two whole blocks on our walk before realizing she would never catch up with it). tell everyone to put their goddamn cats out and my sister ethel will chase to them to a location like, say, the president's ranch in crawford so that when he retires he can stay busy clearing brush and cleaning litter boxes. in my sister's absence i promise to do my part for homeland security by diligently eating HER dinner as well as my own so as not to attract any undiscovered cells of goddamn fatcats.

sincerely,

wally.
a k-9 good citizen (certificate available on request)

serial killer in YOUR neighborhood!

no, i'm not being alarmist. there is probably a serial killer in your neighborhood--a goddamn cat! according to npr (which mawma insists is national public radio and not national pet radio) the american bird conservatory suspects that goddamn cats may be the biggest predator of birds and they want info about how many critters your goddamn cats are killer. hear the story here. (look at me and my homonym!)

not me!

let me state for the record that i was not in cedar rapids iowa (though i know someone who went to college there!) on tuesday:

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - An employee working the drive-through window at a McDonald's will have a tale to tell. When the worker went to the open window thinking the car pulling up had already ordered, the people in the car threw a dead cat through the window, police said.

Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer Matt McAtee said the black domestic shorthair appeared to have been dead for a while.

while i do not have an airtight alibi i do lack sufficient motive because i would obviously never leave a drive-through without burgers and at least one supersize.