Gerret Swirled

I Ride Inside!

2012-02-12T18:28:47Z

Yes! The Gerret has joined the Dogs Against Romney Super Pack and their "I Ride Inside" movement. Everyone knows that animal crates on the roof of a car are for cats. (Just kidding Slippers. Maybe.) I've even gone so far as to update my universally loved and award-winning feature film with new scrolling subtitles. Enjoy!

Yes, I'm Finally Famous

2011-12-23T19:55:51Z

So yes, that's me, The Gerret, on the front of a greeting card and soon to be on T-shirts as well. I just can't imagine a better holiday present for all you out there. So Merry Happy and Happy Merry and see y'all next year!

Swirlin' on the Beach

2011-09-16T01:00:32Z

Well, The Gerret learned two things last weekend. First, I never want to do anything that requires a life jacket, and second, I never want to do anything that requires a parachute. And that's not weird. I Googled me and sure enough it said I was a land mammal, emphasis on the "land." That's "LAND" mammal. It doesn't say anything about water and nothing about air except when it comes to drinking and breathing which I can do just fine with all four feet resting on dirt. You see, Stump and Tweet tricked me and Maggie into the car and hauled us off to a couple of places called Nags Head and Kitty Hawk. What a bummer. One place was all about drowning, and the other was about jumping up and not coming down. This isn't what dogs are paid to do. There we met up with Irene, Girlfriend, Sassie, Andage, Chap and Bodee. Andage was all about surfing, which is apparently some variation on taking a big flat stick out into the world's largest water bowl, jumping on top of it for a while and then falling over. If I did that they'd take me to the vet. We did a lot of this at sunrise for obvious reasons. Who'd want to get caught trying to find a gnarly tubular something-or-other in a giant, over-seasoned water bowl? Plus Stump and Tweet kept picking up our turds and putting 'em in plastic bags. Gross! What are they saving 'em for, Christmas? How weird is that? And they complain about dog breath. So on the left that's Maggie at sunrise, then Bodee with Girlfriend and Maggie watching Andage with his giant flat stick, and finally The Gerret trying to educate Maggie about riptides. Speaking of which, Maggie drank the water. Yours truly did not. Now she's cross-eyed. What a putz. With her weight problem she should be avoiding salt big time. This is me and Maggie with our new housemate Irene. She showed up at our place right around the same time as Hurricane Irene, so we all call her Irene. Stump says she's a foster dog. I don't know who the Fosters are, but I wish they'd pick up their dog because she's cramping my style. You do the math. Pork chop leftovers divided by two dogs vs. pork chop leftovers divided by three dogs. I rest my case. The problem is Stump and Tweet and Andage can't say enough good things about Irene, so if you really care about The Gerret you'll adopt this dog NOW. Or I'm gonna start sending out resumes. As for Kitty Hawk, that was even weirder. People sitting on sticks and jumping into the air and not coming down in a timely manner. Sheesh. I know you're with me on this one. Plus it isn't even in Kitty Hawk, it's in Kill Devil Hills. And what is a kitty hawk anyway? Could we get a few around our place? We got kitties.

How I single-handedly scared off Hurricane Irene

2011-08-29T19:32:25Z

So last weekend The Gerret collided with Hurricane Irene and I'm guessing you know who won. I knew you did. Anyways, Stump documented the whole thing over on Bourbon, Dogs and Art (click here), even if he did downplay my role in saving pretty much everything he holds sacred. But that's okay. I'm a dog. This is my job. To protect, and serve, and run in circles with crazed abandon until even hurricanes decide it might just be safer to tiptoe past quietly and move on down the road. P.S. - Maggie helped.

Born on the 4th of July

2011-07-04T20:08:18Z

Yep. The Gerret was born on the Fourth of July. This is only my fourth party, but it calculates out to 35 dog years, so I don't want any of you Gen-Y folk trying to pull rank. And Happy Birthday to the good ol' US of A! It is now 1190 dog-years old. Not bad for a failed experiment in corporations-are-people-too democracy. So anyway, since I'm talking about me, and talking about the USA, and just happened to get photographed making a political statement the other day (see above), I'd like to request that once you get that whole Civil Rights thing settled, and that Gay thing straightened out and those rich folks relieved of all taxation, can dogs be next?

The Hazards of Duke

2011-06-17T01:48:03Z

Yes, dear friends, yours truly, The Gerret, got accepted at Duke University. At least for today. And not just because I'm smart, but because they wanted to test just how smart I really am. Little did they know. I was invited to participate in a study being done by the Duke Canine Cognition Center, run by Professor Brian Hare. I jumped at the chance because I remember hearing Dr. Hare's name on the Animal Channel one time. Rumor has it he's almost as smart as some dogs I know. He thinks that by studying dogs humans will "gain a window into the mind of animals as well as the evolution of our own species." It could happen. But not today. In retrospect, the problem was in the premise. "The majority of problems we present to dogs are very similar to those presented to young human children..." said the printout. I mean excuse me?! Young human children? Ever been around a young human child? You would waste The Gerret's intellect on child's play? So what started out as mild amusement soon turned into a gripping battle of wills. And by the time it was all over, The Gerret had crushed the competition. But I jump ahead. While I didn't meet Dr. Hare, I did get to interact with several of his well-trained, loyal assistants. I believe their names were Courtnea and Mona, but I don't hear so well so corrections appreciated.

Here's the scene of the throwdown. Note that humans use lots of color tape to mark locations because they can't smell very well.

Mona started the problem solving by placing a small treat in each of two different bowls of different colors (yellow and black). I'm supposed to wait until the bowls are placed on the floor, then run over and eat a treat out of each bowl. The idea was that I'd learn to look for treats in the bowls. The problem for me was that the treats sucked. So I said to myself, I can't keep doing this for those store-bought pieces of cardboard. How will I train these folks to provide better treats? I hit on a plan. About the third time they put treats in the bowls, I just sat there. I didn't move to either bowl. After repeating this behavior several times, I noted a learning response in the humans. Stump, who was in the room observing, offered Mona some ham jerky treats he opined might be more effective. So they tried it again with the ham jerky. And in an effort to reward their growth and reinforce their behavior, I obediently went to each bowl several times in a row and retrieved the treat. So having taught them how to upgrade a treat, I decided to see if I could train them into an even more complex behavior. I quit going after the ham jerky treats in the bowls. Stone cold. When Mona put treats in the bowl, and Stump released me, I just went over and sat by the door. Stalemate. Mona was thwarted. She brought in Courtnea to consult. Courtnea left and returned with an unopened can of Vienna Sausages. Human Food! I considered this a major cognitive breakthrough, and rewarded it by visiting each bowl several times and retrieving the sausage treats. To be honest, I was overjoyed by the amount of training I'd accomplished in such a short period of time. I'd gone from cheap dog treats, to expensive dog treats to human food in maybe three-and-a-half dog hours. But I decided that now was not the time to stop with such valuable research. So the next time they put Vienna Sausages in the bowls, I just moved to another part of the room and lay down. No coaxing, no entreaties, no treat-flashing could make me budge. The tension was palpable. Finally, I witnessed the greatest breakthrough up till that point. Courtnea said, "If Gerret won't come to the treats, we'll bring the treats to Gerret." Hallelujah! So Courtnea sits down in front of me with her two bowls and her Vienna Sausage and creates a treat-game where I don't even need to get up. She was practically sticking the sausage in my mouth. Since I was on a roll, I reinforced her behavior a couple of times and then returned to a state of boredom. I probably should have stopped there, but it was obvious the staff was not tired yet so what the heck. After a bit of discussion Courtnea and Mona decided to abandon the treat-based research and see what they might learn using toys. Of course they didn't have any real toys. No sticks, no bones, no cats. But I was willing to play along. So I'm still stretched out on the floor and Courtnea puts a blue rubber bone-sorta-thing on the floor and walks away to see if I'm interested or afraid of it. I walk over, check it out, lay next to it. No big deal. Then she puts a green toy on the floor. Again, I walk over, check it out, lay next to it. No big deal. Then she puts a yellow toy on the floor. I'm like, "been there, done that, no reward" and don't move. Another crisis for Duke crew. That's when Courtnea pulls out the heavy ammo. It's a remote-controlled squirrel-bear robot thing that runs around the floor and makes me get up and move. I checked it out, but it didn't smell like a squirrel or a cat or mouse or a mole or anything else I could chase, eat, kill, or intimidate, so I lay back down and started to go to sleep. Apparently at that point they put down two toys at once to see which one I would gravitate to, but I was lost in some dream involving Coco and puppy kindergarten and ignored the whole thing. From a training standpoint, it was tough love time. I responded to nothing. My eyes drooped. I yawned.

Here I am dozing off with a weird animatronic squirrel/bear on the left and a pink rubber thing on the right.

And VOILA! Next thing I knew, Mona and Courtnea were kneeling next to me, having abandoned all attempts to test my behavior and instead were both petting my belly while I lay on my back with my feet in the air. I had achieved the Holy Grail of human training and I'd accomplished it in less than seven dog hours. I will be writing up my findings in the Journal of Human Cognition Research later this year.

Merry Merry and Happy Happy

2010-12-16T21:11:12Z

You know, sometimes my wiki leaks. Just sayin'. Here I am guarding the art. What with the global rise in terrorism, the miserable economy and all the deer in these parts trying to hide from hunters, I've made it my job to make sure nothing gets in the way of Stump being able to afford dog food. He sells the art, he buys the dog food. It's as simple as that. So The Gerret is guarding the art. You should buy some. I can cut you a side deal. Lane Watson took that photo. Genius! Caught my good side. Ha. Like The Gerret has a bad side. Anyway, here now it's cold and snowing and the sun goes down before I've hardly had a good stretch. That can mean only one thing. It's the end of the world. So to celebrate I've summarized another year with my annual Christmas movie to wish you all the best. It features birds and ducks and gooses and chickens and cats and terrorist squirrels, plus I make Maggie say "uncle" and as a special treat, superb crooning from yours truly. Enjoy! P.S. - The soundtrack music is courtesy the generous Kevin MacLeod. Many thanks.

Tall Tails

2010-08-30T02:04:55Z

There are people out there who actually believe that dogs have psychic abilities. That we can talk to each other without moving our lips. That we can predict the weather. That we can diagnose tumors and recognize evil humans as they approach. That we can tell when Stump's coming home before his airplane has even landed and that we know when you've put a pill in our food no matter how deeply you bury it in some fancy meat product. Okay. Okay. Some of that is slight-of-paw, some is misdirection, much is careful observation. (If you spent 24/7 observing me the way I spend 24/7 observing you, you'd have a much better understanding of why I hate playing "fetch my stinky slippers." Argh.) Yes, there's a rare few, like your humble author The Gerret, who truly have some psychic abilities. For instance, I know that at this very moment you are reading my blog. Now you're thinking, "that's a stupid joke." Now you're thinking "how did he know what I was doing and thinking?" Psychic powers! But let's go back to the "talking without moving our lips" thing. Because people anthropomorphize dogs, they expect them to talk with their mouths. But mainly we talk with our tails. You probably wouldn't know about that since you don't have tails, just booty. In fact, some folks think dog tails are superfluous and they cut them off. Sheesh. Try cutting out your tongue and going to a cocktail party. You get the picture. Dog tails are like billboards, and GPS systems, and cell phone towers and dog podcasts all rolled into one. To wit, my newest movie:

You be the judge

2010-08-20T20:29:25Z

Just read that the label "free range" doesn't mean what you might think. Whatever. Around here it means chickens go where they want when they want and there are certain restrictions on dogs following them at high speeds. The Gerret considers this unnecessary regulation. I'm arguing that we replace "free range" with "affordable range" just as a way to reduce the deficit around here. But I ramble. In case you weren't aware (I'm talking to you, Maggie), there's a universe out there bigger than Frog Pond Farm. It's called Alamance County. It's HUGE! And they have something called a humane society, which sounds like it's about humans, but it's really about animals and the people they care for. Around here we rely on the Humane Society of Alamance County to keep track of the passage of time, and in order to meet that responsibility they issue a calendar every year. And that calendar features 12 of the hottest adopted/rescued animals in all of Alamance County. Why 12? I dunno. Ask them. Anyway, this year we entered yours truly, The Gerret, in the contest to appear in the 2011 HSAC calendar. And then, as an afterthought and in order to avoid lots of jealousy and bitterness, we also entered Maggie, Slippers and Sophie. Personally, I look at me, I look at them, I look at me, I look at them, I look at me... and well let's just say I was pretty confident. But this probably wouldn't be worth writing about if it just turned out that The Gerret got what he deserved. When the announcement arrived we learned that the HSAC had selected Sophie - SOPHIE - (heck we call her "Soapie") to appear in their la-de-da calendar. I'm stunned. I can't believe that Sophie would be the choice in a popular election. And so I turn to you, the citizens of the world. Please vote on which of the four of us you would have included in the calendar. To cast your vote, write the name of your first choice [in order below: THE GERRET, Maggie, Slippers, sophie] on a dollar bill and mail it to P.O. Box 68, 27340. Don't worry. I'll get it. And I can count.

Hot Chicks!

2010-08-14T21:56:32Z

Hi y'all! It's ME! Maggie! The hardest working tongue in two counties! How am I? Awesome! How are you? Awesome! Isn't that just totally awesome! Been just soooo totally busy lately, what with all the eating and sleeping! Woof! Had to take a moment from my busy schedule to belately introduce some new members of the pack or flock or what-ev-ah! It's our newest chickens Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato! They are the three young thangs appearing in the above photo in eggs-actly that order! From left to right! They are... you guessed it... TOTALLY AWESOME! Around here we just call them "The Sandwich!" Ha-ha-ha! I make myself laugh! Oh well! Gotta go! Food to eat and naps to take! CUL8R!

Goodbye to The Chigger

2010-06-10T22:01:46Z

Chigger -- my first, best and only mentor -- passed away yesterday. 15 years old. This is her last picture. Notice who she's hanging out with? The Gerret! I'm proud of that. Not bad considering she used to cuss me out on a regular basis. I wasn't too tolerable in the early days. (I wrote about those rough times here, here and here.) Chigger wasn't a loud dog, but it seems awfully quiet around here today all the same. She used to tell me stories about things I can't even imagine. Like the 20th century, telephones with leashes and a time when dogs didn't have blogs. She was a pioneer in that regard. Of course back then the squirrels were always faster, the holes were always deeper, unwelcome visitors were always scared-er and the garden never lost one single solitary strawberry to a deer on Chigger's watch. I think she might have been the first dog. But mainly she was a proud working dog and her increasing infirmities embarrassed her. As she used to tell me, "People think we dogs do what we do because we want to. But that's wrong. Dogs do what we do because it's what people want us to do, as best as we can figure out from their poor communications skills. We're here to protect and serve. That's the fun part." The Gerret's got some big paws to fill.

Frogapalooza

2010-05-20T21:35:12Z

So this dour young lady is Snowball, one of our resident turtles. Snowball generally hangs out 24/7 in the frog pond so this is a rare land sighting, even for one as eagle-eyed as yours truly The Gerret. Tweet suggested that Snowball must be headed somewhere to lay her eggs 'cause that's about the only thing that would get her to leave the pond, but I know better. Snowball's clearing out for a few weeks because she knows that it's almost time for the annual Frogapalooza at Frog Pond Farm. That scowl is her way of saying "get me outta here." And what, you ask, is Frogapalooza? I'm glad you asked. When Stump and Tweet first moved here there was a pond, and it had a lot of frogs in it, so they named the place "Frog Pond Farm." Personally, The Gerret would have preferred "Dogpatch" but I wasn't around back then to make my case. Anyway, Frog Pond Farm eventually got listed in all those little froggie tourist guide books, and featured on the froggie Internet and even had several hundred thousand froggie fans on Frogbook. And out of that grew Frogapalooza. Happens every year. First week in June. Every frog from here to Calaveras County comes to the Frog Pond, or at least it seems like it. You got your tree frogs, and your bullfrogs, and your green frogs and cricket frogs and barking frogs and peepers and chorus frogs and every whichever kind of frog. They all show up at the pond looking for a little bit of that froggie love. It'll be pretty quiet during the day cause they're all sleeping it off, but once the sun goes down, those frogs start hollerin' and humpin' and they don't care who's listening or who's watching and they don't stop until the sun comes up in the morning. They're so loud you can't hear a cat fart from six inches away. So this here is my sound and pictures documentary of Frogapalooza, just so you know what I'm talking about. If you're brave you'll plug your computer into your sound system and crank the volume up to like 12, because that's makin' it real.

Four lucky rabbit's feet

2010-04-29T21:19:39Z

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! This is just sooooooooooo cuUUute!!!! Maggie here!!!! Look what Slippers brought home last night!!! OMG! I guess because it was just rainy and stuff and he was feeling nice and stuff and he brought this dude inside and stuff sorta! Awesome!! Where does the warm and fuzzy stop!!! The little dude was just totally squeaking a lot at first, but once Tweet took control things settled down! Anyway, I named her Spot! Isn't that perfect!! Tweet wanted to name her Thumper, but I'm all like "Thumper? Thumper? That's soooo lame!" FWIW Tweet is the same person who wanted to name Scoobie Sinatra "Bambi" LOL!!! Where does she get this stuff?!!! Anyway, once she dried off and the rain stopped Tweet took Spot back out and turned her loose and she ran off into the woods. Probly gonna hit the mall!!! Then go hang with Scoobie!!! LOL girlfriends!!!! And so anyway The Gerret has got his collar all in a bunch over something he calls the supreme cord decision allowing videos that show violence toward animals. Gag me with a chicken bone!!! You want to see just total violence and degradation perpetrated towards dogs? Huh? Huh? Check this out!!! GaGa is right!!! Or maybe GagGag!!! Hahahahahaha!! Gotta go!!! CUL8R!!!

Iris you were here!!!

2010-04-16T22:52:24Z

IRIS you were here!!! Bwahhahahahaha!!!! Sometimes I crack myself up!! Wicked funny!! Maggie here JICYHAFTO!!!! The weather is here, Iris you were beautiful!!! Hahahaha!!! That's twice I made me laugh!!! So you gotta look at this video! I mean it's like almost totally awesome!!! Technically, that's not The Gerret in this video, but I'm betting him and this hot dog prolly both came from the same sausage factory!! ROTFLMTO!!! Dog park, ball park, parallel park... don't matter to these dogs, it's all just poop-poop-pa-dooooo!!!! O-M-G gross!!! Check it out!! Gotta go!!! CUL8R!!!

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2010-04-06T02:20:08Z

Have you ever tried to stare at a television screen for 87 straight minutes? EIGHTY SEVEN MINUTES? Sheesh. No sane mammal would ever do that. That's more than TEN HOURS in dog time. Oh well, there's probably no moral high ground here. My good friends at some Hollywood-type marketing agency sent me another DVD to review. Specifically, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox." That's cool. As The Gerret has said more than once: will perform for treats. The subtext here is that I'm late. They're pissed. I'm crankin' it out. But really. 87 straight minutes? That's asking a lot from a dog. So here's The Gerret's review of The Fantastic Mr. Fox. But hey! Stop the presses. Before the movie even starts, there's trailers, and one of those trailers is for... drum roll... "Marley & Me: The Terrible 2's." I repeat: "Marley & Me: The Terrible 2's." Get it? A sequel to "Marley & Me." Now I don't mean to get too all full of myself, but if you're one of the half-dozen readers who read my review of the original "Marley & Me," you'll know that (***Spoiler Alert***) MARLEY DIED. (***End of Spoiler Alert***). Make of that what you will. But I'm here to talk about "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," which I guess they sent to me because foxes are sort of like dogs. So they figured I'd like this for the same reasons humans like "Bedtime for Bonzo." Right? You do like "Bedtime for Bonzo", right? Because Bonzo is sorta like... well, you know where I'm going with that. Enough complaining. "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" star George Clooney and Meryl Streep in the most amazing roles of their careers. The both lost a ton of weight, got a bunch of plastic surgery and glued hair all over their bodies. Robert DeNiro eat your heart out. I kid you not when I say Streep is a fox in this movie. Anyway, I don't want to spoil the ending, so I'm not going to tell you anything about the movie. Just let me say that if you've ever been dissed by a rich farmer, or had a possum for a friend, or enjoyed Bill Murray in "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" you'll love this movie. So what's the verdict? The Gerret, as always, easily impressed, just has to give "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" four Gerrets. The Fantastic Mr. Fox: