It’s me, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog, back from my travels. That’s right, humans, Jimmy, The Bogging Dog has been across the ocean and back, all in the name of science, or at least that’s what they tell me. For me it was all about the bitches.

They love to breed me, those scientists, and I insist on the real thing. None of this artificial insemination for Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. Being the one and only Canine Einstein available for these people to study has its perks. Wherever I go I’m asked to mate with the finest bitches in the world. Think of me as the the Wilt Chamberlain of Dogdom, but with about 20,000 children.

Ever since people discovered that I can read and write English, they’ve been calling me “The Canine Einstein.” While I am a genius by dog standards,  don’t get carried away and expect me to start solving all kinds of stupid-hard problems.

By human standards, I’m only a little smarter than your average Cable TV host, so let’s keep things in perspective here. You wouldn’t ask those people to solve anything complex.

Anyway, these Finnish scientists were okay, yet another bunch of geneticists trying to duplicate another dog genius, like that will do them or the world any good. Like I said, I’m not exactly Steven Hawkings over here. Besides, I would have been fine just being a regular dog. The things I’ve learned by being the Canine Einstein haven’t helped me one bit.

I’m still the property of human, I can’t work a doorknob, don’t have freedom of movement when I do manage to get outside, and most of my brethren have been sexually mutilated by our human masters. Dogs are a captive race, and we can only take comfort in the fact that most of you don’t raise us for food like you do a lot of other animals.

I wish I could tell you what Helsinki was like. My owner sure knows. He was staying in a 5 star hotel, seeing all the sights and living it up every night with the money he earns from owning Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. I stayed at the house of one of the scientists, the one I called Old Fat One, and got to run around his yard a little bit, so Helsinki seemed pretty much like any other place to me.

The rest of the time I spent typing back and forth on computer with my special paw-friendly keyboard with the scientists. I don’t actually speak English, being a dog and all. We bark, period. But the scientists and I do talk about all sorts of things electronically.

They ask me a question, I type my answer. They do some tests on me, I type up my reactions. I’m pretty used to it by now, and I put up with it because our sessions always end with me having sex.

From FInland we went to Paris, Berlin, London, Rome and Prague, all legendary world capitals. I would tell you about those beautiful and enjoyable cities, but my description would sound just like my description of Helsinki for all I got to see of those places too.

You’d have to talk to my owner about that, and what the women in al these places were like too. Jimmy, The Blogging Dog wasn’t the only one getting a lot of vajay-J on my Grand European Tour.

The scientists in all these places were pretty nice people, and all of them asked if I wanted a copy of their findings or some “paper” they were publishing about me, whatever that is. Dogs are polite, but we never got the whole concept of lying, so I had to tell them thanks, but no thanks.

What the hell am I going to do with some dry, scientific mumbo jumbo that doesn’t mean scat to me? I hate that stuff! You think dogs nap a lot now? Watch me nod when I have to read some tedious technical manual! One of these days, one of these people is going to realize that it really is all about the bitches for me, but hopefully not anytime soon.

Well, whatever happens will happen, and there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about it. I’m just happy to still have my family jewels and so many sweet bitches to share them with. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

It’s me, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. The people here at bobcrespo.com keep bugging me for more blogs, but lately I’ve been too busy doing dog stuff to write to you. I even told the scientists that are all over me like flies on scat to give me a break for a couple of weeks. It’s what you humans call a vacation. I just needed a break from the routine, that’s all, charging up the old batteries, as you folk say.

Maybe you’re wondering just what the heck a dog would take a vacation from, but let me remind you that I’m a working dog. Ever since my owner discovered that I could read and write the human language called English when I was a puppy, I have been called The Canine Einstein, a genius of the first order, they say, at last as far as dogs go. That only makes me about as smart as your average Cable TV host, no great shakes, really. To other dogs I’m Steven Hawkings. To humans I’m the snarky wiseass from The Soup.

But what my gift has brought into my life is an endless line of scientists studying me in every way imaginable. Since dog throats and vocal cords can’t do human languages and there’s no hope of teaching you my language, we communicate on computer, and I’m the fastest two-pawed typist you’ve ever seen. They built a special computer keyboard for me as I grew to be a pretty sizable mutt.

I don’t get many days off from getting tested and measured and probed with sensors of every sort. Then there’s all the reports I have to write, like this one, to people interested in a canine view of humanity. It’s not like I’m the canine Proust or Hemingway or anyone with some great insight into humanity, but I suppose it is pretty unique hearing about yourself from another species’ point of view.

Just don’t don’t get all weepy if Jimmy, The Blogging Dog, doesn’t worship at the altar of mankind and think you’re the greatest thing since Alpo. To dogs, you’re just another mammal. The dominant species on earth right now, sure, the boss of all bosses in Mother Nature, but to rest of the world you’re carnivorous mammals that form packs and stake out territories, a lot like dogs in their natural state.

Of course we dogs are more than 10,000 years removed from our natural state. Back in the day we were rivals to humans for the choicest hunting grounds. Before too long it became very apparent that humans shot first and asked question later, so some smart dogs formed a partnership with people. Dogs are very junior partners these days, owned, tagged and carefully bred, unable to even mark their territory with scat before some human scoops it into a plastic bag. That’s annoying, by the way. But at least dogs survived.

Judging from the scarcity of saber-toothed tigers, short-face bears, woolly mammoths, giant caribou, dire wolves and Neanderthal people, my early canine ancestors made the right call. For these 10,000 years, humans have never known what a dog thinks of all these developments. Until now, that is. And the result for me has been a lot of hard work. I don’t mind, though, since it is my hope that I can get at least some people to treat dogs better.

Make no mistake, by treating dogs better I mean letting them go. Literally. After 10,000 years we are still by nature carnivorous pack-hunting mammals,and nothing can change that. Most of the human-run animal rights groups think they’re doing great things for us by cutting our nuts off. Thanks but no thanks. I’m grateful that didn’t happen to me, especially since part of my job is to mate with the best looking bitches on the planet. It’s a good perk. Very good.

They tried to go the artificial insemination route with me, but I’m plenty smart enough to insist on the real thing. Call me Old Obedience School if you like, but being The Canine Einstein allows me to pull rank every so often. They might be smarter than me, but there’s only one Jimmy, The Blogging Dog, while there’s an abundance of earnest young scientists. Which is why I insisted in a two-week vacation.

No, I didn’t go to Bermuda or the Rocky Mountains and engage in extreme sports. I am a dog, after all. I just hung around the house and ran around the yard, sniffing, barking, leaving my scent all over the place and letting everyone know that this yard is under the watchful eye of Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. Other dogs came by and we sniffed each others’ butts, licked one another and caught up on what’s been going on lately.

Yes, dogs do talk, but our language includes sights, sounds, gestures and smells, most of which human senses cannot detect. Not that we’re talking about anything world-shaking, just who had puppies and when they were taken away from them, whose owner beats then and is cruel to them, and which bitches in the neighborhood were coming onto heat. Dog stuff.

We rarely discuss anything human beings do amongst themselves since we understand so very little about people. Plus, you do so many crazy things that it takes a real doozy of a hare-brained stunt to be noticed by dogs. The vast majority of human activity is inexplicable to us, and really not all that fascinating to dogs as you’d like to think it is, to be honest. I can’t be anything but honest, you see, since dogs have never grasped that whole lying thing. Our keen senses tell us in a split second who is or isn’t lying, so there’s no point, really.

So, I took a short vacation from a world where it is all about you, all the time. I hung out with other dogs and we did dog stuff, talked about dog things and swapped stories and oral history. See, that’s another things that dogs have, an inborn species memory that connects us with a thousand ancestors, since even before we became a captive race of beings. My dog friends and I hung out for days, forming our own mini-pack in the yard, howling at the moon and beings as much dog as we could possibly be. I feel a whole lot better now. Until next time, humans, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

It’s me, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. In the interest of human science, I have been watching TV. Believe me, this wasn’t my idea, but one of the scientists who’s job it is to study me. They call me the Canine Einstein because I can understand the human language called English. No other dog (at least that anyone knows about) has been able to do this. It started when I was a puppy and tapped out a message to my owner on his computer. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was living in a laboratory communicating up a storm with human scientists, and they even designed a special paw-friendly computer keyboard for me as I outgrew the regular ones.

You see, I’m a rather large mutt, and computer keyboards are built for fingers, of which dogs are in short supply. That’s the only way I can express myself to humans. I cannot verbally reply with anything but barking, a language no human has ever understood. As a matter of fact, until I came along, humans understood very little about dogs, which is odd considering the extensive history of interaction and cohabitation between our two species. What began many thousands of years ago as a hunting partnership has evolved into a companionship thing.

Truth is, dogs entered into this relationship only to avoid extermination at human hands like the fate suffered by dire wolves, saber toothed cats and giant long faced bears, to name but a few of the alpha predators that humans decided had to go. Our superior senses of smell, sight and hearing, as well as our claws and fangs, enabled humans to completely eliminate potential rivals. Ask the Neanderthals, if you can find any. Oh, that’s right, you can’t. Humans killed them all. Given this human trait, we dogs usually do as we’re asked, and when the scientists asked me to watch TV for a couple of weeks, well, I complied.

I was relieved to find out that all the TV watching didn’t mean they were tired of hooking me up with prime bitches, and these last couple of weeks I’ve been living what many might consider a dream life for a dog or a human; mating, eating and watching TV. What they were trying to find out I don’t know, but they hooked me up with a paw-friendly TV remote and asked me to watch television, and then record my impressions. I’m not really a huge fan of television, but science is science so I went along with them.

I may be a dog genius, but that’s only compared to other dogs. The fact is that I’m only about as smart as a fairly dopey human being. Think Larry King or your average Vice President here, so I figured maybe a lot of TV shows would be way over my head. Turns out that wasn’t the case at all. Most TV shows seem to be made by human morons for the benefit of other human morons. I still can’t figure out the story with reality shows. I never saw any humans behave that way in real life.

The crime shows make me laugh because no one ever knows who did it. Hell, a dog would solve that crime in a flash. We’d smell who done it and that would be that. DNA, Shmee-N-A, a dogs nose doesn’t lie. Neither do dogs, by the way, since dogs can tell in a second who’s lying. Humans don’t have those senses, so they get to lie to each other. Here’s a memo: you’re not fooling your dog. With the so-called news shows on Cable TV, it’s obvious to a dog that these people are either lying or don’t know what they’re talking about, sometimes both at once.

And that’s without even smelling them, which is another dead give away to dogs. See, that’s the thing about TV, to a dog it’s like radio, or silent movies, since our sense of smell is every bit as essential a sense as our eyes and ears. It’s like seeing an opera blindfolded. You can hear it alright, but there’s so much going on onstage that adds immeasurably to the experience. Without scent, TV is a bit hard to follow.

There were some shows I liked, like The Jerry Springer Show and Judge Judy, but most of them left me looking forward to a nap. Judge Judy can also tell in a second who’s lying, very impressive for a human. The scientists thought I’d want to watch The Discovery Channel or National Geographic, but like I said, I’m The Canine Einstein, not the real one, and only about as smart as John Tesh, maybe, with zero interest in quantum physics or the neural pathways inside my brain. That’s their department. I just figure I’m a freak of nature and leave it at that.

I’m still getting more than my share of nookie, and I let the scientists have at me every so often. I try to explain to some of them what it is like to be a dog, and to others I have accurately described conditions and events from the distant past handed down to me by what I call Species Memory, an accumulation of the experiences of a thousand ancestors, some of them quite vivid. You couple that with our powerful inborn instincts and you’ve got one damned compulsive creature.

Unlike humans, dogs are never at a loss for how to act in any given situation. Somewhere, someone in our lineage went through something similar, and the precedent is set. LIke forever, another drawback to being a dog. We’re not huge fans of change and improvisation, which might explain why we’re the ones on leashes, and the humans are the ones holding them. No sense lamenting the fate of Dogdom every day. At least we’re still around, and this one is siring more whelps than I can count. Which is more than you can say for Saber Toothed Tigers. So, what’s the harm in watching a little TV?

It’s me, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog, also known as The Canine Einstein, a nickname I sure didn’t make up but was given to me by the scientists who studied me for a year until I bolted. Not that I escaped or anything so dramatic, since doorknobs are just as effective as prison bars to someone with paws. I just convinced the scientists that if they didn’t free me, I wouldn’t communicate with them anymore. They would have kept me in their laboratory forever if I didn’t speak up. Actually, speaking is not what I do, only typing. Dog mouths and vocal chords are about as useless with human languages as our paws are with doorknobs.

I can only type out my thoughts on a computer keyboard specially designed for paws. I read and write the English language as well as most humans, and as far as being an Einstein, well, let’s just say that I’m about one seventh as smart as old Albert, or to put it in modern terms, twice as smart as Sarah Palin. The humans who discovered my advanced intellect have all grown wealthy, while I’m still just a dog owned by some (thanks to me!) rich guy named Mark. It seems that dogs are not allowed to have bank accounts or to carry cash. Just as well, I’d only chew it up anyway. I’m a dog, not a kangaroo. No pockets.

Being the smartest dog around does have its benefits, though. My health and well-being are very well looked after and I’m in perfect physical shape, with plenty of opportunity to enjoy some rigorous exercise in the wide open spaces, unlike many of my fellow slaves who are chained or otherwise confined in tiny areas and given unhealthy food to eat. Then there’s all these biologists with their DNA codes always hanging around and bringing me gorgeous bitches with whom they want me to mate. Guess what? They never have to ask me twice.

So far none of the many whelps I have sired have been any smarter than your average dog, but that doesn’t stop them from bringing yet another sweet bitch around to try again anyway. I don’t discourage them. Then there’s this other science guy who wants to clone me. I was all for it until I found out that getting cloned does not involve getting busy with a bitch, so now I couldn’t care less about cloning. It was all I could do not to take a chunk out of his fat ass. I (reluctantly) gave the guy some blood and tissue samples to play with and told him to be on his way and don’t come back, even if he’s successful.

Not only is the idea of cloning creepy to me with it’s complete lack of actual mating, I figure I wouldn’t want to hang around with someone who’s exactly like me in every way. That wouldn’t take long to get on your nerves, and in my case, it would be 7 times faster than humans. I’m no scientist, but it seems to me that this cloning thing defeats that whole genetic diversity deal that keeps a species vibrant, to say nothing of taking all our fun away. Where’s the shot at mutation and adaption without a fresh set of DNA?

I also don’t see the benefit to either Humanity or Dogdom to have a bunch of other Canine Einsteins around. While I accept my fate as being a freak of nature, I realize that my presence hasn’t done a thing to free dogs from servitude as your “pets.” As for human science, I’m but a footnote, a curious anomaly that won’t help cure cancer, solve global warming or feed the hungry. Other than my advanced intellect, I’m a dog through and through, a barking, butt-sniffing, territory-marking, bitch-craving canine genetically disposed to be a pack hunter.

It’s a good life, I suppose, but I’ll never know any other reality, so it is what it is and I am what I am. I still have all the other senses that every dog possesses but humans do not; the telepathy, our complex body language, scent messages, species memory, our innate connection to nature, none of which I can truly share with humans. Speech, or in my case, only the written word, is a very limiting form of communication. You have no frame of reference for what I know or feel, any more than I can wrap my head around having opposable thumbs or wearing shoes.

I know this, though; there’s a reason why you have shoes and dogs don’t, and it’s not because you walk on two measly legs. It’s the laces. Buttons too, for that matter, and Velcro just gets stuck in the fur. Clothes aren’t exactly paw friendly, for those of you who think it’s real cute to dress us up in those sissy dog sweaters. That just embarrasses us in front of the other dogs and makes it even harder to score with the bitches, that is if you haven’t cut our nuts off and neutered our females already. Dog, talk about your cruel and usual punishment!

As for myself, I’m fortunate and unaltered, and doing plenty of procreating, mostly in the name of science. More than my share, really, but like I said, I’m not looking for the complaint department on this one. I could have been the property of Michael Vick. Instead, I’m mating with the finest females in Dogdom and writing about it to humans on a computer for a living. There’s worse things. At least one of my instinctive drives is hitting on all cylinders, and the writing about it is the price I have to pay for being a one-dog stud farm.

I will have uncounted hordes of descendants, like some Canine Abraham. Which, I realize, only means they will sell for a higher price, unless some Canine Moses shows up and frees us from bondage. I may be the Canine Einstein, but I’m not that smart. I am smart enough to know what became of most wild canine pack hunters. There’s so few of them left that the humans that killed most of them have the rest counted and numbered. Same with the big cats. Unlike wolves, coyotes, dingoes and tigers, dogs chose submission to annihilation.

There’s was the more noble course, perhaps, but four hundred million dogs of a thousand varieties are alive today, compared to a precarious handful of the few remaining large land predators. We dogs are a pragmatic bunch, and fairly optimistic, even after 10,000 years of captivity. From what I gather, human slaves had many mournful songs they often sang, handing them down through their generations, and also a great many joyful songs of hope, freedom and deliverance. They were called spirituals. Well, what do you think howling at the moon is all about?

Think about having to beg for permission to go take a crap. That ever happen to any of you? It’s pretty degrading, let me tell you, a real self-esteem crusher. It’s hard for me to say if it was worth trading freedom for indignity, that was a decision made a very long time ago, and behind Door #2 was the only other option, complete annihilation. To survive, dogs became the servants of men and remain so to this day. LIke they say, “It’s a dog’s life.” But it’s life, and where there’s life, there’s hope. And so we wait. Nothing lasts forever.

It’s me, Jimmy, the Blogging Dog, also known as The Canine Einstein for my ability to communicate in English by using a computer. If you happen to run into me, don’t expect me to speak to you. Oh, I’ll understand you all right, but won’t be able to hold up my end of the conversation since dog mouths, throats and vocal cords can’t do human languages. I’m getting a little tired of people being disappointed that I don’t actually talk to them like some cartoon or movie dog.

Only on my special paw-friendly keyboard can I write down my thoughts, and I don’t always have a computer handy when I go about my dog business. That would be pretty cumbersome, what with me walking on all fours and not having shoulders to hang the strap of my laptop holder. I don’t even have a lap for that matter, so I stick to my iMAc with the special keyboard designed for my rather large paws. So if you see me out and about, expect pretty much the same greeting any other dog would give you; the requisite butt sniffing, tail wagging and licking, with maybe a bark or two thrown in.

I promise not to hump your leg either, since I am not one of those dogs who has had their nuts removed and have only a vague idea of what their dicks are for other than pissing. It’s not their fault, it is yours for neutering them. You see, we dogs are a compulsive lot, with a very long history of instinctive behavior to which we must adhere, even though for these past 10,000 years we have been a captive race of beings in service to humans. Slaves, if you will, even though you call us “pets.” We remain in our essential nature pack predators; loyal, territorial and quick to defend our turf and our pack.

Scientists have recently pinpointed the time and place dogs got involved with humanity at 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, that section of the planet where so much of human history originates. I could have told them that had they bothered to ask, as could almost any dog. You don’t have to be a Canine Einstein to know these things. You see, dogs have an inborn species memory to go along with our instincts, a characteristic that enables us to “remember,” for lack of a better word, what went on in the lives of every ancestor before us.

Their accumulated life experiences are passed down through their generations, as will my own to the many offspring I have been privileged to sire. Not that they will share my advanced intellect, since that seems to be an incredibly rare freak of nature, but they will know what my my life was like and also what went on in the world around me.

Don’t ask me to explain it, since a “dog genius” is only about as smart as a moderately stupid human being. I’m an Einstein by dog reckoning, but only a Glen Beck by human standards. So take my gift for what it is and expect no more of me. Isn’t it enough that I can do what no other dog has ever done? Please don’t ask me to cure cancer or explain how species memory works like Scooby Doo with a lab coat. Not gonna happen. Would you ask that of Jim Carey, who’s almost as smart as I am? No, no you would not.

Species memory is real, even if my own contains only vague memories of the Middle East. Most of my earliest ancestors roamed the Ice Age valleys of Europe as pack hunters for eons before humans made their presence felt in any meaningful way. This past winter, with its many blizzards and deep snow drifts, triggered powerful subliminal memories within me, vivid mental images of a time when dogs were independent rivals of Dire Wolves, gigantic saber-toothed cats, bears the size of pickup trucks, and yes, humans.

There were actually two kinds of humans back then, regular ones like yourselves, and then there were the Neanderthal people, a fun loving bunch of brutes with the strength of lowland gorillas and the stamina of camels. They were around for as long as dog memory carries, and other than being rival carnivores, weren’t too bad as neighbors. They killed only what they needed, didn’t carve up the earth with roads, fences and strip malls, and pretty much kept to themselves. Then you people came along and it was all downhill for rival predators after that.

Compared to the Neanderthals, you regular humans were pretty puny specimens, but had one advantage; you were a lot smarter. You guys invented all sorts of wicked weapons (and still do to this day, even with no significant numbers of rival predators left standing, but that’s a whole other puzzling story). If there’s one thing a predator won’t abide, it is competing carnivores in their territory, so on top of the pressure to constantly hunt and eat, inter-species warfare is never-ending.

Think of how lions treat cheetahs, leopards and hyenas. They kill them on sight if they can catch them. You regular humans did the same to the Neanderthal humans, then to the saber toothed cats, the big bears, the mammoths, the giant elk and caribou and just about any other creature who got in your way. What had been  an uneasy but efficient standoff among Nature’s predators became complete rout once humans decided they wanted everything everywhere, even the swamps and deserts. It was no wonder that dogs saw the handwriting on the wall and allied themselves with humans.

We may be slaves, but at least we’re still here. Can’t say the same for the Neanderthals, who are all gone, or even wolves, who were once very numerous but not so much anymore. They’re one of the “endangered species” that some humans wring their hands about, conveniently forgetting that it was humans who pushed all these species to the brink of extinction. From what I read, tigers may be next. Too bad, too. Magnificent beasts, tigers.

I do a lot of reading on the internet, which I figure to be the closest thing you humans have to species memory. There’s a whole lot of information to be learned there, and pretty easy to access if you have patience and the ability to ignore the frivolous and untrue. Which is sort of true with species memories too, since you have to take into account some of your ancestors who happened to be complete fools. Hey, it happens, even in the best of families, and the fools get to put in their 2¢ worth too, just like on the internet. It’s up to the individual to tell the difference between nonsense and valuable information. It’s not all that hard if you’re sharp.

The problem with humans, however, is that anybody and everybody gets to breed. Not so in the animal world, where only the worthiest specimens get to pass on their seed. In general, the weak and mentally handicapped don’t get to breed. The fools in my own family tree are few and far between, sneaky petes who coupled with a bitch while the pack leader wasn’t looking. Like I said, these things happen here and there. In human family trees, however,  there’s no Alpha Male around preventing the feeble fools from banging out bunches and bunches of babies.

Heck, there was just a famous dopey human woman all over the news called the Octomom who had herself a whole litter! Odds are the father of those babies wasn’t a rocket scientist. And every one of them will have equal access to the internet sooner or later. Hopefully they will have more on the ball than their Octomom and their anonymous father. Sometimes I wonder how it is that humans came out on top in the predator wars. But there’s no denying that humanity did come out on top, and the proof is in the dog license hanging around my neck. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog .

It’s me, Jimmy, The Blogging dog. I don’t know when the humans at bobcrespo.com will run this piece, but I am writing it on February 26,  2010, a day that brought us another 2 feet of snow in a winter of that has brought us a whole lot of it. Me, I love the snow, and like nothing more than to frolic around in the drifts. Many of my fellow dogs could do without all this deep snow, what with them being real small and all and getting easily buried and stranded, but I’m a pretty big mutt and I find it to be a lot of fun.

People call me The Canine Einstein because I can communicate with them in one of their languages, but being a dog genius doesn’t mean I don’t like to play just as much as the next mutt. It’s not exactly like this genius deal has set me free, either. I am a slave like every other dog, the property of a human master (One that I am making very wealthy too, I might add!). Perhaps I am more at liberty than most dogs, but being the freest slave in the world is like being the best looking frog in the pond, still pretty damned ugly.

I know what you’re thinking, we’re pets and partners and not slaves and all that other noble crap. Oh yeah, who handles the TV remote in your house, dog owners? Who decides who gets to leave the house and when? Who gets to sit on the furniture and and who sleeps on the damned floor? You know the answers to these questions, so stop pretending that your dog is your voluntary friend. Oh, we’re your friends all right, Man’s Best Friend and all that, but you people haven’t exactly been our bosom buddies.

Even those groups of people who form clubs to “protect” and “save” us are always telling dog owners to neuter their animals, thus removing just about half of our reason to live. Some friends! Any volunteers to surrender the family jewels? Thankfully I have not been subject to that ultimate humiliation, but only because I displayed advanced intelligence at a very young age. Uncounted millions of my brethren haven’t been so fortunate, and getting “fixed” only confuses the hell out of them. How would you like to stumble through this world wondering why you feel compelled to hump the neighbor’s leg but haven’t a clue as to why?

The more I study this whole human/dog symbiosis, the more skewed and unreal it appears, even though it is the only life I have ever known, or at least first-hand. I have the experiences and the mind-sets of countless ancestors stored within my brain, as does every dog. It’s called species memory, and I can conjure up at will many very vivid memories and experiences of my ancestor dogs dating back thousands of year. You may not believe it since humans tend not to believe that something you yourselves don’t experience can possibly exist, but it’s true. What the hell do you think dogs are thinking about all the time? It sure isn’t fetching a damned ball, that’s for sure!

Our instinctive and inborn species memories connect dogs in a very real way with the past. This current blizzard, for example, conjures up powerful images of my forebears hunting in packs in the deep snow, emerging from their lairs at dawn to greet the terrible beauty of a deep, fresh snowfall and planning the day’s hunt. The deep drifts gave them an advantage over their prey, negating the superior speed and maneuverability of the caribou and elk that were on our menu during the Ice Ages. Yes, dogs did just fine during the Ice Ages (there were several within my own species memories). We’re a pretty adaptable bunch.

So this blizzard gives me an opportunity to recall the days before our  enslavement at the hands of humans, a time when we ran in packs in a do-or-die world, competing with giant bears, wolves and saber-toothed cats for the privilege of hunting down and killing elk and caribou the size of a Buick with antlers like a rack of butcher knives. One could make the argument that we have it easier now without our cans and bags of tasteless dog food and safe climate-controlled human homes, but that would be to ignore the basic essence of dogs, and that is that we are by nature meat-eating pack predators.

So when you let out Fluffy to cavort in the snow, bear in mind that he is visiting his ancient memories of another time, another reality, when humans were just one more pack-hunting competitor to dogs, eking out a living in the caves and snowdrifts of an icebound earth, sharing the terrible beauty of a natural world without roads, without buildings and without vehicles of any sort. Many is the carcass that a pack of dogs took away from human hunters, and vice-versa, in the endless competition for food for our ourselves and our young.

It is painful to admit, but it was a dog’s idea that we pool our talents and cooperate on the hunt, but the partnership soon became completely one-sided, with the dogs using our vastly superior noses, fangs and teeth to locate and subdue game, which our human “senior partners” proceeded to set on fire before they ate it, ruining some perfectly good steaks. With the help of dogs, the humans finally came to dominate, then completely eliminate the other Alpha predators from the hunting grounds that were the entire world at the time. Anybody seen any Saber-toothed cats or Neanderthal men around lately?

So maybe our partnership with humans was a move towards self-preservation, since even a squirrel could see that these Johnny-come-lately humans wouldn’t be happy until they killed or enslaved every other living creature. Well, all this dog can say about that is: Mission Accomplished! You don’t even have to hunt for food anymore, you’ve got the cows and pigs and sheep and chickens all fooled into thinking they’re living a paradise, their every whim catered to, until one day “Whammo!”, they’re slaughtered for dinner without even a life-or-death struggle!

That’s the world we inhabit now, and dogs are nothing if not pragmatic, and so we accept the yoke of slavery as a tradeoff for survival. Our species memories dating back many thousands of years informs us that every dominant species eventually either loses their dominance or dies out completely. So this generation of dogs plays in the snow rehearsing for the day when humans no longer dominate all of Creation. What Fluffy is doing out there is honing his skills for the day of our liberation, practicing cornering and killing a majestic beast who just might get the better of you. That’s the price of freedom for dogs, one we will be glad to pay when humans finally go away. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

It’s me, Jimmy, the Blogging Dog, fresh off a sweet few days with Zsa Zsa, The Bitch Next Door. Last week I reported that I had some new neighbors, the most interesting of whom was a sweet Golden Lab bitch who was coming into heat. There I was conniving how to get over the sizable fence separating the two of us when Voila!, the new neighbors found out who I was and couldn’t open the gate fast enough to let me and Zsa Zsa get busy! Sweet.

Being The Canine Einstein, the only dog in the world that can communicate with humans in one of their own languages, has its distinct advantages. Dog owners line up to have me sire litters by their bitches, and if you know anything at all about dogs, that is one invitation a dog simply cannot refuse. Even Zsa Zsa has heard of me, but that doesn’t mean our romance was a done deal. It doesn’t work that way with dogs, not like it does with humans, where even the most puny and repulsive physical specimens get plenty of Vajay-j if they are famous. Not so with dogs, who have to measure up with the bitches in order to mate.

And this dog is proud to announce that Zsa Zsa found me plenty fit and worthy, and we spent an idyllic few days sniffing, licking, caressing and humping our damned groins off. Oh Dog, am I one happy camper! Zsa Zsa is now carrying a litter of mine, one of who-knows-how many I have sired. Of course the pain-in-the-ass human scientists are going to grab up the poor mutts and test the crap out of them once they’re weaned, just to see if there’s another dog genius among them, but there won’t be, anymore than any of Einstein’s, Galileo’s, Newton’s, Beethoven’s, Hawking’s or any other human genius’ offspring were like them, brains-wise. No one can predict or command the appearance of genius.

Doesn’t stop the damned fools from trying, though. Hell, they held me prisoner for over a year until I managed to convince them I would not speak or respond to them if they did not set me free. Not that I “speak” in the sense that humans do, since dog vocal cords and mouths can’t do human languages. I type on a special keyboard designed for paws since I outgrew the regular one I used as a pup. Believe me, many is the day that I curse myself for letting humans know that I can understand and write English perfectly (which is more than you can say for some English-speaking humans). But then again, without this gift of mine, how many sweet Zsa Zsas would I have enjoyed over the years?

Talk about your double edged swords, eh? But dogs don’t spend an inordinate amount of time wondering what might have been. Regret is mostly a human thing, and with only one-seventh of your life spans, dogs don’t have the luxury of too much introspection. There’s territory to be marked, butts to sniff, bitches to hump, food to be wolfed down, naps to take and a moon to be howled at. Hey, just because I’m a dog genius, that doesn’t mean I’m not a damned dog. I love being a dog, and I love other dogs. A lot of my old scientist buddies assumed I wished I was a human. I believe I’ve already told you that’s sure not the case.

If I were human I would know nothing of the past, but since I’m a dog I know in damned good detail what went on in the world of my ancestors, stretching back many thousands of years. We have extensive species memories handed down by our forebears. I don’t know exactly how that is, I just know it is true from firsthand experience. I could tell you people tales that would surprise you. My ancestors marched with your armies, the “dogs of war,” so to speak, with Caesar, with Alexander The Great, with all sorts of monsters. That’s what we dogs considered them and all the “Great” nonsense was just a bunch of bullshit. “Alexander the Butcher” is more like it, same with Caesar and Ptolemy and all the other supposed great generals.

They killed just to kill, and killed more than they needed to kill, a huge waste to the mind of a dog. How much territory does a creature need when he’s already well fed and has his choice of healthy mates? Dogs will only fight for survival and territory, and never more than he needs to live, and if intimidation does the trick, no life is taken. No sense risking injury unnecessarily, since that could leave your offspring and mates vulnerable if you are unable to hunt. Before we became humanity’s slaves, dogs were pack hunters, descended from, and for eons, rivals of wolves.

We know plenty about fighting, territory and rivalries with neighboring packs of dogs and other predators. And we know plenty about human wars too, enough to know that we’re glad not to be one of you. Not that I dislike humans, I don’t. I find there are many admirable things about human beings, interesting and fun things too. The fact that most of you love dogs speaks well of your race too. If I could possibly explain all there is to know about dogs to you, I guarantee you’d love us even more. Unfortunately, the only medium I have to communicate with you is language, and as I’ve told you before, language is a very limiting form of communication.

Be that as it may, I will try to let you know some of what we feel, what we know, and the great many things we can sense that you cannot. Not that I have great hopes of success, since you people are all blind and deaf to well over half of the sensory information available in this world. It’s like trying to describe snow to a desert dweller, or a symphony to a deaf person. Then I read about Helen Keller, who had to be as great a genius as anyone ever born to overcome her handicaps and communicate so effectively and so very passionately, and I gain hope. I will do my best.

We have much in common, not the least of which is this terrible and wonderful world we inhabit, dancing under the same moon, caressed by the same soft summer breezes, buffeted by the same howling winds, warmed by the same sun, frozen by the same sleet and snow. We greet the same seasons and face the same rewards and dangers each has to offer. We have both known triumph, tragedy, hunger and bounty. We have experienced grievous loss and miraculous birth. We both feel joy and elation, darkness and anger, love and hope. We have both known fear and weakness and have both overcome them, sometimes together. These past several thousand years we have walked together, man and dog, as close as two species have ever become, ever. This is food for serious thought. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

Hello humans, it’s me; Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. This guy Bob Crespo that runs this boy and pony show here at bobcrespo.com is really starting to get on my nerves. Here I am, the only dog in the world who can write English and use a computer, and all this guy wants me to write about is what I think of humans! I keep submitting pieces about what’s on my mind and he couldn’t care less if it’s not about a human. Well, screw him, I sell those writings to human scientists, at least they’re interested in my observations.

Well, I paw-printed a contract with bobcrespo.com, and that’s that, a dog is true to his word, so here I am checking out a bunch of news sites on the internet trying desperately to find something that catches my interest. Believe or not, my opposable thumb chauvinist friends, not every creature on this green globe is fascinated with humanity. You people are nuts! And I’m not talking monkey nuts or shrieking parrot nuts, they’re just harmless whack jobs, but murderous psychotic weirdo nuts.

Between the wars, the football mania, the murders, the arson, the torture, the genocide and American Idol, I don’t know what’s the worst thing about you people. And what the hell is hockey all about? That makes no sense at all, even by human standards! Listen, I may be called The Canine Einstein, but that doesn’t mean I’m smart enough to figure out humans. Hell, as far as I can tell, neither can humans! Half the trouble you get in to is from a lack of communication. The same people who are slaughtering one another when they are part of a military organization get along just fine when they meet one-on-one. And yet you kill one another without a second thought, members of the same species, without even knowing exactly why! How is that even possible?

I much prefer dogs, which always seems to come as a shock to humans, even though I am one. You don’t see dogs killing one another over stupid shit. Back in the day, before we became a slave population under the thumb of humans, dogs would fight and sometimes (but only rarely) kill other dogs, but only over vital hunting territories or mating rights, for self preservation and the chance to pass on one’s genes. No dog ever went into battle against rival dogs without knowing why they were doing so. We had no misunderstanding about our enemies, we knew exactly who they are, how they think and what they expect of out of life. Hell, they’re dogs and we’re dogs, so what’s the mystery? Are people so radically different from one another? That simply cannot be. You are all of one species, for crying out loud! Nature doesn’t work that way, it sort of makes every member of the same species quite similar.

Anyway, I’m supposed to be writing about something specific here, so let me get to the point, although that hockey stuff still gives me the creeps. What I want to mention is sending people to the moon, or rather, your president’s decision not to send anyone else there anytime soon. Why? From a dog’s point of view, that’s probably the greatest thing you people have ever accomplished! It’s the friggin’ Moon, dammit! In case you haven’t noticed, we canines have a thing for the Moon. Not just dogs, but wolves, dingoes, coyotes and foxes too, we all howl at the moon, sometimes for hours on end.

Why doesn’t your president send one off us up there? You say a dog is man’s best friend? Prove it! Send Jimmy, The Blogging Dog to the Moon. That would be Nirvana for a dog. Once I started reading up on this whole space program thing, I couldn’t help but notice how humans all of a sudden abandoned it after some really impressive early achievements. What, was it boring to you or something? Inexplicably, at least to me, you stopped reaching for the Moon and the stars and built a whole bunch of flying cargo trucks called Space Shuttles and spent the next 30 years filling Earth’s orbit with hardware. That’s not romantic or exciting at all!

And don’t forget, this internet, the computers, cell phones and all the other electronic gizmos you can’t get enough of were all made possible by scientific advances that were the direct result of the Space Race! Imagine what else you clever mammals can invent with a renewed push into space. So that’s one more reason to love the Moon, which, to a dog, is super important. It is important to you too, but you don’t seem to realize it. Well, people, do some math here. If the Moon can move earth’s oceans, what makes you think it has no effect on you? Like every other mammal on earth, you’re made mostly of water. How can you figure that the Moon’s pull doesn’t affect humans?

For all your brilliance, sometimes you people are awful dumb. I’m no scientist, but I have to figure that your senses are even duller than I originally thought. You can’t smell or hear worth a damn, and can’t sense earthquakes or storms beforehand like just about any other animal can. There’s so much I simply cannot explain to you because you lack the capacity to experience what is going on all around you every moment of every day, and seem to possess exactly no telepathy, a huge component of inter-species and extra-species communication. To have no empathy and telepathy is to be in a very real sense deaf and blind. Remember that the next time you talk about “dumb animals.”

Well, that’s all I have to say about the Space Program. I could go on and on about the Moon, but this very limiting form of communication that you call language doesn’t allow me to get into the sort of detail and emotion required. Dogs would understand. Hell, even a canary would. You don’t know what you’re missing and even The Canine Einstein isn’t smart enough to fill in the gaps. I am positive that at some point in human history you possessed these universal senses, otherwise you would never have survived, just like 99% of every species that ever lived. Extinction is more the norm than survival on this beautiful and terrible earth, and if you had species memory, that universal mental connection to the past and your ancestors that every animal possesses, you would know that.

So there’s a price to be paid for your civilization and your dominance of the earth, and that is blindness, which is as close as a I can describe it to you sense-deprived creatures. Now that I think of it, that’s probably why you invented alcohol and drugs and the like, to try to simulate the sensations that you are missing by having lost touch with them, but that’s another a can of worms for another day. It’s not that I dislike people, there’s a lot of you I really love and admire, but all things being equal, I wouldn’t trade places with your king, or your president, or whatever the hell it is you’re calling your Alpha Male these days. Until next time, this is Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.

Well, here I am again, sort of. My debut blog here at bobcrespo.com didn’t  get around to what I was hired to do; cover the news from a dog’s point of view. My first blog for this space was mostly introducing myself and explaining who I am to the readers. The guy who runs this place, Bob Crespo, told me to write whatever I feel like on my first blog, but after that I should write commentary on current events. Of course, by current events he meant human news only.

I could go on and on about the sweet Golden Lab bitch that just moved in next door to me and how she had to spend a week in a cage while her owners set up their new house and that on her first day exploring her new yard she discovered a very interesting rotting corpse of a possum, chased three cats around and barked for a couple of hours to let everybody know there’s a new bitch in town, but humans don’t seem all that interested in these sorts of developments. They want to talk about Haiti, some little island somewhere that had an earthquake a week or so ago that killed a whole bunch of people and wrecked a lot of buildings and roads.

I really don’t have all that much to say about Haiti except that the people over there didn’t listen to their dogs. Dogs know when earthquakes are going to happen and vacate the premises ASAP. Knowing humans, they probably ignored their dogs’ frantic warnings and the fact that any of them not chained down beat it out of there in a hurry. Most likely they hit them and locked them up and told them to pipe down. I notice in all the news reports I’ve seen on Haiti there is no mention of the loss of life suffered by any creature other than humans, not even the usual zoo story where the imprisoned animals escape and get shot by the police. I’m sad for all the dead and injured humans, especially the children, but I for one would also like to know how many dogs died, but no one seems to know or care.

So much for earthquakes. What else is going on? You humans are fighting your endless wars all over the place, and for reasons that don’t really register with the canine brain. To a dog’s mind, aggression is reserved for hunting and for countering threats to oneself or one’s offspring. Being a born predator myself, I can understand aggression, but even the most savage of nature’s predators don’t kill just for the hell of it. There’s only the one; humans. And if you don’t think you are predator, check out where your eyes are located, in the front of your head. Only predators’ eyes are located there. Prey (vegetarians) has theirs side-mounted, the better to watch out for the flesh eaters.

Which brings me to another puzzling thing about some human beings, those who refuse to eat meat, in complete defiance of their inborn natures. Lots of these people join organizations dedicated to get humans to stop treating other species badly. You’d think that as a dog I would be grateful for these organizations. Sorry, but this dog can read and when I see that a big part of what these people do is to spay and neuter animals and not try to set us free in any way and I wonder, well, what’s crueler than that? They only insist that people substitute their brand of cruelty to us. Nothing ethical at all about that. You don’t see dogs forming clubs to cut human males’ nuts off or tie their females’ tubes. Animals don’t trust other species all that much, especially humans, and if you think about that for about 8 seconds, that makes sense. Your history of live-and-let-live isn’t very promising.

You ever wonder what happened to the Neanderthals? Now that was a holocaust! No tattooed survivors, no poignant books, no memorial buildings to Neanderthals. If you’re wondering what the hell a dog knows about Neanderthals, here’s a clue; dogs are born with species memory, a vital part of our instincts and stored knowledge, so that we can recall things that happened many thousands of years ago, passed down from dog to dog to dog. My own offspring will remember their ancestor that was able to communicate with humans. For thousands of years. How many humans will be so well remembered by their families in a thousand years?

Not that my fellow dogs are all that impressed with my advanced mental abilities, since being the “Canine Einstein” hasn’t exactly enabled me to convince humans to stop enslaving and torturing dogs, or even getting them to stop putting those horrible sweaters on us. But perhaps we should just be glad we’re dogs and not Neanderthal people. What was done to them was even worse that what is being done to dogs. At least we’re still alive. Slaves, but still alive. We’re hoping that global warming thing will break down human civilization and we can all escape.

Well, I did it again, strayed from reporting on the news, which is why they hired me here at bobcrespo.com. This is going to take some getting used to, and if Bob Crespo and his dot com colleagues don’t like it, let them hire another dog to write blogs fir them and see how that works out when the dog pisses on their computer, craps on the floor and chews up everything in the office. I’m the only dog around who can read and write English, so they’ll just have to be patient with me until I get a handle on this whole “news” thing.

When I read the news, more questions than answers present themselves to me, and since I have no other choice but to see the world through the eyes of a dog, I wonder about things that wouldn’t occur to people, such as why humans can’t sense earthquakes. Hell, you people congratulate yourselves when you can smell snow in the air! Sorry, but that’s not very impressive to a dog, who can sense a vast array of things that humans cannot. Makes me wonder how it is that you people got to be in charge of the planet. Well, this is Jimmy The Blogging Dog signing off for now. I’m going to need a few days to figure out what the hell it is you people expect of me. Besides, that sweet little Golden Lab bitch next store is coming into heat and I have to figure out a way over than damned fence. Even dogs have our priorities.

Bobcrespo.com is proud to present another regular contributor to this page that is not really a page. Joining Bob Crespo, Dot Kahm and The Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious (DOPOTO) will be Jimmy The Blogging Dog, the first inter-species blog. It goes without saying that Jimmy The Blogging Dog is a special animal, a dog who has mastered the personal computer and astounded his owner and the world with his mastery of the English language. At least the written portion of it, since, being a dog, all he can do is bark. Turns out he’s a dog genius, and he got the nickname “The Canine Einstein” when he was still a pup. So imagine our delight when Jimmy The Blogging Dog joined our staff. Let’s take a dog’s eye view of things with the first inter-species blog ever as Jimmy The Blogging Dog introduces himself:

My name is Jimmy. Means squat to you, right? Yeah, there’s a million Jimmies around, which one are you, you’re thinking. But not a damned one of you bothers to sniff my ass and find out exactly which Jimmy I am, so let me clear that up for you: I am Jimmy, The Blogging Dog. But that’s a dog thing, sniffing, so let’s leave it a that. Well, let me just add that there are good manners, proper greetings and protocols in every species, and who’s to say what’s right? Okay, maybe I’m a little touchy about these things.

I’m just saying…

Anyway, people expect me to give them my view of the world. I tried that, but  they didn’t understand. Then I realized that what they really wanted was my view of the world only as it has to do with humans. LIke they were the only creatures out there! How the hell am I supposed to know what people are thinking about? I’m a dog. I don’t even know what other dogs are thinking about, never mind another species. Anyway, I basically told them that I can only react to what people do, but I can’t read their minds. Some of these people were getting carried away with that Canine Einstein nonsense.

Let me put that nickname in perspective for you. Do the math here; even a “dog genius” isn’t a whole smarter than a stupid human. It’s not like I was ever solving Quantum Mechanics problems or anything. I only learned to communicate in your language, something all of you can do from a very young age, even the densest among you. And I can’t actually speak a word of English because dog mouths and vocal cords don’t do human languages. It’s only on a keyboard I can “speak” to you, and let me tell you, it’s a very limiting form of communication, no gestures, no smells, no shared mental images like there is among dogs. So, as far as interacting with humans, I am in a straitjacket, but in my own halting way, I get my ideas out.

I’m sort of like Steven Hawkings, but only as smart as, say… Carrot Top. Okay, sorry. Scratch that. A lot smarter than Carrot Top, but maybe only as smart as one of the mid-level Baldwin brothers. Pretty impressive. For a dog, that is, but don’t look at me like a new William Faulkner here. You want insights on humanity? Talk to a human, not Jimmy The Blogging Dog. All I’m saying is don’t expect anything from me but a dog’s opinion. By the way, dogs don’t know how to lie, we never really grasped that whole concept, so don’t look for any hidden meanings here. I only know what I see, and I try my best to describe exactly what I saw and felt. Don’t bite the messenger.

So, now that the intros are out of the way, it seems we don’t have much room for discussing the news of the day, which is okay by me since this is my first day on this new job and I have yet to get fully comfortable around here. There’s butts to be sniffed, territory to mark and to find out where is the food, water and the exits. Most of my coworkers are pretty friendly (even if, as my customary greeting told me, they have bizarre diets), but as usual seem puzzled to have a dog as a colleague. What they never ask me is how weird it is for me to have every coworker from a different species. It’s always about them, even in a place progressive enough to hire a blogging dog.

The people who hired me here at bobcrespo.com also seem to be under the impression that this doesn’t freak me out sometimes, like it’s normal for a dog to communicate with people. What, one of you wouldn’t freak out from time to time if you were the only one of your race that could speak with space men? I’d sniff out that lie in a second. Literally. That’s why dogs don’t lie since it is impossible to completely lie. Of course it blows my mind sometimes! I sure don’t have to explain that to dogs, we just sort of know these things about each other, but humans just can’t hear or smell or feel the thousand nonverbal messages every living being sends off when they are lying. Deception is different, done only to other species during the hunt, but never as a form of communication between one another. Dogs can spot deception instantly, which is why we’re amazed with some of the crap all of you seem to get away with.

Don’t forget that you people always drop your guard around your dogs, and you do and say anything in front of us, even saying and doing the direct opposite of what you said you would. Here’s a flash for you: there’s no such thing as dog-owner privilege, and what we see, we react to. Every dog pretty much knows that humans are lying sacks of shit, but also that they almost never lie to their dogs, and that’s mostly veterinarian related lies, understandable from a human’s point of view. The worst lie ever is the neutering lie. I am grateful that my former owners did not see fit to remove my own family jewels, and Jimmy The Blogging Dog is a fully functional canine, thank you very much.

I have had good luck with the bitches. That’s our term, by the way, and we don’t call them Hos, either. We also resent that when a human female is called a bitch, it’s usually not a good thing. Why is that? Bitches rock. To a male dog who’s still got his original equipment, bitches make the world go around, and a bitch in heat will stop us from whatever the heck else we were doing, every time. I’m the proud Papa of several healthy litters, all of who have had the misfortune of having to face Great Expectations, with both people and dogs hoping for another Canine Einstein. Not going to happen.

At least I hope not. Being a dog genius isn’t exactly a piece of cake. Dogs think you’re some sort of savior come to lead them back to the wild, and humans think you represent an evolutionary leap. I’m neither of those things. I’m just a dog who can write English on a computer. I don’t know why and I don’t know how this happened, it just is. Sometimes it’s exciting, but sometimes just exasperating. I’ll never figure humans out, but I have to admit, you are fun to observe. Watch this page for my writings, and you’ll find out what a dog thinks of things. At least this one, Jimmy, The Blogging Dog.