Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, but a large chunk of this week’s stories feel as if they came straight out of The Onion. They didn’t, but I’ll still preface the whole column by saying “I’m not making this up.”
Cat fight! Two cat litter companies are going at it with each other over an advertising claim. The gist of the argument is — get this – cats do not talk. I kid you not. Gothamist has the details:
Arm & Hammer is suing Clorox because the Clorox brand “Fresh Step” claims that cats prefer “Fresh Step” to Arm & Hammer’s “Super Scoop.” The suit says an “independent study” is flawed, “The Clorox advertisements are unambiguous that the judges of whether Fresh Step is superior at eliminating odors are cats, not people. But cats do not talk, and it is widely understood in the scientific community that cat perception of malodor is materially different than human perception. It is not possible scientifically to determine whether cats view one substance to be more or less malodorous than another substance.”
And it’s all over this ad, which I’ve gotta say is pretty damn cute. I’m not sure it’s actionable, but I’m not a corporate lawyer, either.
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How smart is your Border Collie? I am firmly in the camp that believes Border Collies are among the smartest canine breeds. As a result, I like the Science Daily article featuring a study from Wofford College saying Border Collies can differentiate between one thousand unique objects by name, and can distinguish between the objects and orders to fetch them.
The authors demonstrated that their dog, Chaser, learned the names of 1,022 objects — no upper limit is apparent — they stopped training the dog after three years due to their time constraints, not because the dog could not learn more names. This study demonstrates Chaser’s ability to learn the names of proper nouns, and her extensive vocabulary was tested repeatedly under carefully controlled conditions. The authors admitted that she remembered the names of each of her 1022 toys better than they could. Chaser’s ability to learn and remember more than 1000 proper nouns, each mapped to a unique object, revealed clear evidence of several capacities necessary for learning receptive human language: the ability to discriminate between 1,022 different sounds representing names of objects, the ability to discriminate many objects visually, an extensive vocabulary, and a substantial memory system that allowed the mapping of many auditory stimuli to many visual stimuli.
Thank God for the lack of opposable thumbs.
Dog ate my wallet: Back to the world of “Really?“let’s go to Toronto, courtesy of the Toronto Sun. A guy is pulled over by the Ontario Provincial Police for speeding. He tells the officer he doesn’t have his license because, yes indeed, his dog had eaten his wallet. And then….
Michael Macleod’s lies continued when he gave the officer a fake name. He used the name and birth date of someone he knew. When the man received the speeding ticket in the mail with a licence plate number he recognized as Macleod’s, he phoned police, assistant Crown attorney Susan Bruce said.
Macleod, of Sudbury, pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and impersonation.
The 22-year-old was prohibited from driving in December 2009 after he pleaded guilty to failing a breath test.
He was driving his mother’s vehicle when he was pulled over on March 14, 2010 about 10:50 p.m. after the OPP officer clocked him going 96 km/h in a 70 km/h zone.
In the future, “my dog ate…” doesn’t work. Whatever it is we’re talking about. It’s never worked*. Small children figure that out. Apparently, word didn’t make it all the way to Canada.
*Except for Gina and her license, but even so, she’s still got it in her possession, so the rule still applies.
The story of the WWII mocking mutt: OK, this one gives me serious doubts. Just because the AP has the story and it’s in Yahoo News doesn’t mean I still believe it. As the story goes, in World War II Finland there was this Dalmatian mix named Jackie. Allegedly, Jackie had a unique talent. I make no promises that this isn’t a hoax. Honestly, I’d like it to be true. I just don’t believe it.
Tony LaRussa weighs in: I’ve written about baseball manager Tony LaRussa’s legendary love of animals and his work in the Bay Area. SFGate’s Scott Ostler quotes LaRussa’s opinion on Philadelphia’s athletic dog killer.
“It seems like (Vick’s) getting a pass on the severity of what he did,” LaRussa said. “And part of it’s because he’s come back in a sensational way, athletically. You’ve got to separate the two. I think he’s expecting, and he’s getting, much less condemnation and quicker forgiveness than he deserves.
“The forgive-and-forget part that’s dominating with some, it’s way too quick for that. … I don’t think he should be executed, but I think what he did was horrific, and we’re edging forward legally in this society to making people have more of consequence when they act that way towards animals.”
And just in case you missed it, yesterday’s final score: Green Bay Packers 21, Philadelphia Eagles 16. No. 7's season is over.
Tissues at the ready: Marge forwarded the link to this long cartoon, called dog, the thoughtful animal, and added:
Excuse me, I have to go get a Kleenex now.
Just a heads up, that’s good advice.
NOTE: The link will probably bring you to what appears to be a blank page with dim text down the left side. Click on that text to enlarge it to a full page.
Best adoption video of the week: The kitty litter ad was cute, but this wins video of the week, and is especially good if you liked the recent series of Old Spice commercials.
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I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories. Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail.
Photo credit: Hissing cat, Urban/AP.
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