A lot’s been going on, lately, that involves dogs. I don’t mean in politics or culture, I mean in my life, which is what actually matters.I saved a dog’s life the other day. I threw myself to the ground in order to rescue a pug that belongs to a friend of my younger daughter. I could have been killed, but instead I saved a life. And maybe, in doing that, I saved my own.Since this event took place, the other day, I’ve been thinking of writing a longish work of autobiographical nonfiction about saving the dog. I could self-publish it as a standalone book, and call it something like SAVING BETSY: HOW I RISKED MY LIFE FOR A FAT PUG AND WHERE PRIAPIC ORTHODOXY STANDS TODAY. I could do whatever I wanted with it. That wouldn’t have to be the title. It definitely wouldn’t be the title. I looked up what the word “priapic” means. But I could use the tale of my heroics to launder horrifyingly misguided ideas concerning society at large and how other people should lead their lives. Or I could just make it a comically self-indulgent account of something I did that only took half a minute, impressed no one at all, and is not significant. But I would do a really good job. I asked an image generator what a book with that title might look like. It created a man who doesn’t look like me, to go with the book that also does not exist:Who is this man? What necklace does he have on? Why is he wearing those rings? Is he supposed to be a Priapic-Orthodox clergyman? Is that how they dress? Are the beards mandatory? Why does he have that car?And is he taking credit for rescuing Betsy the pug? If so, I will be upset. In fact, that may have to emerge as a SAVING BETSY subplot.Wait a minute. That’s not the title, this is:The real title of my book will be HEAVENS TO BETSY: HOW I SAVED A FAT PUG by Begvey Belsh Bigg. That will be my nom de plume.Also, those things surrounding the pug do not appear to be clocks. What, I wonder, are they there to measure? Chewing GumI don’t like AI-generated stuff. I know I’ve used two AI-generated images in this Hoedown so far, but that’s because they came out looking incredibly stupid, and to me that’s very funny. The audio Hoedown sometimes features an AI-made theme song. But things made by AI are not good. My old friend Nick Perry said online the other day that an AI-generated video he saw was like fast food, that the way it looked cool but was also empty was like the way a McDonald’s hamburger may taste all right but won’t be good for you. Stuff made with care, attention, and maybe even expertise can be good for you. AI has none of that going into it. Not really.When I saw Nick make that analogy, I was like, “That analogy is tight. Hell yeah.”Nick is a great artist—far superior to any computerized image generator—and he’s got some prints for sale online that everyone should check out.Reservoir PogsOne thing that I haven’t lost is the ability to walk dogs. I have been doing quite a lot of that, lately, at the Kansas City Pet Project, a shelter for dogs and cats here in town. They take the occasional other sort of animal, too, like the alligator that escaped from an unlicensed traveling petting zoo that appeared at a middle school earlier this year. The alligator was a baby, with its mouth taped shut, and our older daughter goes to the school the reptile disappeared from. It was exciting.There are lots of theories going around, concerning how the alligator got away from the school, and why it reappeared just outside the same school exactly one week later. Actually, there’s only one theory I know of, which is that a kid from the school stuck it in their backpack and took it home, then returned it when they didn’t feel like having it anymore. There’s a main building for the Pet Project, which has well over a hundred kennels, each of them stuffed with one dog, and with a dedicated dog-walking outdoor zone with a pond and lots of grass and air and stuff. Closer to where we live is a satellite location at an outdoor mall. Since I registered to volunteer, and got trained and stuff, I can go to the shelter and walk the dogs they have in their kennels. There are around fifteen of them at any given time, puppies not included. They spend nearly all of their time in the kennels, and so if someone can come and take them out, one by one, it’s really good. That way they won’t go to the bathroom in the kennels, and they can destress a little before being restressed when they go back in. I can bring the kids with me when I do this. They give them treats. One thing a staff member told me, when she trained me to do this work, was that I shouldn’t hesitate to spoil the dogs. The whole point is to spoil them, to let them sniff what they want, give them treat after treat, and generally waste time walking around outside. This is the best part of a dog’s day, the trainer said. Make it as good for them as you can. Make them feel special.This is, I realized, once I...
