data.3news-bydate.train.rec.motorcycles.105116 Maven / Gradle / Ivy
From: [email protected] (charles.a.rogers)
Subject: Re: dogs
Organization: AT&T
Summary: relative size of dog vs. target
Lines: 53
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Charles Parr) writes:
> In article [email protected] (charles.a.rogers) writes:
>
> >This tactic depends for its effectiveness on the dog's conformance to
> >a "psychological norm" that may not actually apply to a particular dog.
> >I've tried it with some success before, but it won't work on a Charlie Manson
> >dog or one that's really, *really* stupid. A large Irish Setter taught me
> >this in *my* yard (apparently HIS territory) one day. I'm sure he was playing
> >a game with me. The game was probably "Kill the VERY ANGRY Neighbor" Before
> >He Can Dispense the TERRIBLE PUNISHMENT.
>
> What, a dog weighs 150lb maybe, at max? You can't handle it?
We were having a problem with instability in the universal gravitational
constant that day: the closer I got to those exposed fangs (still dripping,
no doubt, with the viscera of the last foolhardy experimenter cum canine
psychology) the bigger and heavier the dog appeared to become. Also,
recall that the distribution of the ~150lb is one five pound jaw+teeth
operated by two 70lb muscles driven by a .005 ounce brain possessing an
instinctual heuristic composed of equal parts of bloodlust and ravening hunger.
The other ~5 lb is, of course, dog poop, but that varies all over the place
as the dog deposits it regularly on the painstakingly manicured and tended
lawns of the dog's owner's neighbors (whilst continuously replenishing its
inexhaustible supply, no doubt by consuming the likes of folks like me).
> You have, I presume, thumbs? Grapple with it and tear it's head
> off!
My very thought at the time, but as I looked down at these once formidable
instruments of mayhem, I realized they had become weak and atrophied by too
many sedentary hours tapping away at my ergonomically-correct CRT keyboard.
There was only one option left: I reached down to the toolbox near my
car and grasped my Craftsman 150 ft-lb torque wrench, surely the bludgeon
of dire necessity if ever there was one. To my amazement and
confusion, the setter started shaking and rolling on the grass, then leapt
to its feet and vanished down the street, still quivering and occasionally
looking back at me.
"Seven at One Blow!" I exclaimed, flexing my new-found biceps and brandishing
my Terrible Weapon of Invincibility as I stalked the now-secure environs
of my domicile. It was only later that I found out what the dog apparently
knew all along: the wrench was defective, would no longer measure torque
accurately, and Sears wouldn't fix it or replace it. What I had interpreted
as fear and subservience were in fact unmitigated hilarity and contempt.
> Sheesh, even a trained attack dog is no match for a human,
> we have *all* the advantages.
Exactly: nobody can look quite as silly as we can.
:-)
Chuck Rogers
[email protected]