Hot diggity dog! Have we got some crazy canine ‘tails’
It’s National Cat Day. (Which it is every day if you happen to be the parent of any lazy, hissy or prissy fuzzballs with cattitude.)
And what better way to celebrate than a mew sing ourselves by poking fun at pups? There are some dogs who really had it ruff last week!
Culprit: Nemo, dog of French President Emmanuel Macron
Crime: While Macron was meeting with government members in Elysee Palace, Nemo — his rescued black Labrador-griffon mix — lifted a leg and urinated against a fireplace in the elegant gilded room.
Make your own government “leak” and “oui oui” (wee-wee) jokes here.
Cameras caught the exchange between Macron and his ministers, whom he told Nemo “was doing something quite exceptional.” Macron blamed it not on a lack of discipline, but on his company, saying with a laugh: “You have triggered completely unusual behavior in my dog.”
But we know who was really to blame. Ungrateful, attention-seeking Nemo (named not after the Disney fish but after Captain Nemo, the hero of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) who was just determined to make a show for the puparazzi that would go viral.
That pooch better clean up his act or that book title suggests where we might be “Finding Nemo.”
Culprit: Actor Ewan McGregor. So he’s a 46-year-old human (322 in dog years), but he’s still a bit of a dawg.
Crime: Being photographed kissing his Fargo co-star — 32-year-old (224 in dog years) Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who is always looking very fetching. This, when he has been married to Eve Mavrakis for 22 years (the two have four children, daughters ranging in age from 6 to 21).
Oh, well, perhaps we spoke too soon. It seems the magazines are saying McGregor and wife have been separated since May.
Still, this has got to be some kind of appawling fauxpaw.
Culprit: All dogs Crime: Manipulation. According to researchers from the University of Portsmouth, dogs make more facial movements — including puppy dog eyes, or “inner brow raiser” described as movement AU101 — when they are being watched.
According to the study in the journal Scientific Reports: “Dogs produced significantly more facial expressions when the human was oriented towards them, than when the human had her back turned to the dog. … Human attentional state also affected one of the dog’s other behaviours, the frequency of vocalizations produced. The visibility of food, however, did not affect dogs’ facial movements and there is also no conclusive evidence that it affected any of the dogs’ other behaviours.” In other words, maybe they’re not trying to whine and dine.
Which means, with their sad eyes, the dogs were even able to manipulate the researchers to think they don’t want treats! Whatevfur.
Culprit: Lulu, a black Lab Crime: She was kicked out of the CIA K-9 explosive detection program — “the first line of defense against explosive threats to agency personnel and buildings at Headquarters and abroad” — because she was bored.
Lulu clearly wasn’t up for this oppawtunity. Her lack of dogged ambition was outlined in a series of CIA tweets: “We’re sad to announce that a few weeks into training, Lulu began to show signs that she wasn’t interested in detecting explosive odors. … Even when motivated (with) food & play, she was clearly no longer enjoying herself. … Our trainers’ top concern is physical & mental well-being of K9s. …They made difficult decision & did what’s best for Lulu: stop her training.”
Lackadaisical Lulu is surely thrilled they’re finally off her tail and no longer hounding her.
Some dogs just aren’t cut out to be white-collar workers.