Fashion Week: Dress Smart!

Fashion week is here!

I provide this week as a service to humans everywhere. As everyone knows, or at least everyone in the animal kingdom, humans dress very poorly. In an attempt to look like animals, humans do some outrageous things... For example, they try to look like animals:



Ummmm... you're not fooling me...

Though at least that's better than trying to dress animals up like humans:


Ummm... yeah.

Well, thanks to my owner's good friends at One Horse Shy, we now have a corrective to pervasive fashion senselessness seen among humans.

Introducing: Smarty Wear!


Now this is an opportunity to celebrate the animals you love without being ridiculous.

You can see some other samples over at this Cafe Press site. The shirt was originally created as a Christmas gift, but they kept multiplying on their own... Apparently they're a big hit with the younger generation, since they are "classy, yet modest."

Christmas Strikes Again

I returned from Camp George this past weekend. As always, I was tired from all the activities and relentless schedule. I was looking forward to a bath and a chance to read the new comic books George gave me. Wait a minute, did I remember to ask him for those?

Well, speaking of free stuff, it turns out that Christmas came again while I was away. I came home to find that Lucy's agent had sent me and Scoche some great stuff!



Lucy, I would like to show you a picture of the nice wrapping job she had done... but unfortunately, I wasn't here to open my own gifts!! I mean, c'mon, it's not like I went on a mission to Mars (though I am curious about Camp George's "Canine Cosmonaut Camp")... I could have at least been allowed to watch my present be opened by someone else on the webcam.

The mystery is, of course, exactly who opened my gift...and whether they took a share of it for themselves.

Did the butler do it?

Well, if a butler can be a woman (and who says they can't?), the answer might be yes! You see, while I was away, Scoche had one of her friends over. They have all sorts of private jokes between them... Naturally, I was a bit suspicious.



But I warmed up to her... In fact, a little too warm if you ask me.





But I must admit, these are some attractive coats. (You can click the pictures to enlarge them.) I like the little whippet pictures on mine, although whoever created these doesn't realize that whippets have only two ears. I guess not everyone has quite the eye for fashion that I do... which is why I am declaring next week Fashion Week at Smarty Spot (don't miss it!).

Well anyway, Merry Christmas...again!

Postcard from Camp George

Dear Scoche,

Greetings from Camp George! As always, it’s been a great time!

I must say, though, it’s been different than I expected. The brochure for the winter session promised snowball fights, hot chocolate, sledding, and building a snow fort.

However, the snow machine apparently isn’t working at Camp George so we had to make do with our normal summer activities: running around like hooligans, drinking water from a communal bowl, and eating pizza.

I also had fun playing Scrabble. I was unofficially on George’s team. Have you ever played this game? It’s very fun. You get points for making the best words.

I noticed that George was only five letters away from having the word “whippet.” This word would use all seven letters and get 50 bonus points! So as you can see, whippet is one of the best words (it’s a very dog-friendly game). Unfortunately, I was caught on camera whispering this to George which is, according to straight laced follow-the-rule types, “cheating.”



I don’t call it cheating, though, I call it helping which is also a 7-letter word worth 50 bonus points. Then you can add a w to the front and make “whelping”! (Speaking of which, mom, you still you haven’t told me where puppies come from – and you promised you would when I was old enough!)

I proposed another strategy later in the night. I told George that if he would just wait until he had the letters s, m, a, r, t, y, s he could spell “Smarty Spot” as soon as someone else put down the word pot. (See? You just add smartys to pot!) Who knows how many points that would be worth! Probably a billion! But, unfortunately, George didn’t take me seriously even though I argued my case...for a while...


Apparently he’s not patient enough to adopt my winning strategy. He was just lucky I didn't offer my talents to his friends who were playing against him. But, even though we have our disagreements, George and I are actually pretty good friends.

Well, anyway, I need to get going now. The other dogs are starting a game of Life and they want my help… but I'm not sure I can give much help with this game until we have that little talk…

Make sure you don’t eat my food! When in doubt, save some for me!

Bye for now!

Your daughter,
Smarty

Take This Game and Chuck It

I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown.
I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown.
I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown.
I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown.

Oh, pardon me, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing this. My master (make that “taskmaster”) is making me write this sentence 25 times as a punishment. You see, we were playing "Chuck It" yesterday and instead of bringing the ball back I, well, you know, got a little distracted by all the delicacies out there in the field.



I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown. I will bring the “Chuck It” ball back after it is thrown.

Hey, that’s pretty easy when you just use the “cut and paste” feature!

It’s even easier if you abbreviate it: I. w. b. t. “c. i.” b. b. a. i. i. t.

I. w. b. t. “c. i.” b. b. a. i. i. t.
I. w. b. t. “c. i.” b. b. a. i. i. t.
I. w. b. t. “c. i.” b. b. a. i. i. t.
I. w. b. t. “c. i.” b. b. a. i. i. t.
Etc., etc.

Good enough. All done!

Now, let me say this in my defense…

The game is called “Chuck It.” So it seems that the onus is on the owner to "chuck" the ball, and really whatever happens from there is fair game. How was I to know that a flying ball implied some sort of elaborate social contract between owner and pet??

It seems my owner was confusing this activity with “Fetch,” a game played by a previous, less liberated generation of animal companions.

But I'm liberated...



... as long as I'm loved!

So please forgive me. I will bring the "chuck it" ball back after it is thrown!

Smarty in High Resolution

Since I didn't get to go to the practice in Delaware yesterday (ahem), I had time to draft my New Year's Resolutions. Here they are, in order of achievability:

As always, I want (1) a more steady diet. Eating once in the morning and once at night, with some grass nibbling in the afternoon, doesn't work for me. The humans eat far more often than I do - in fact, I am planning an entire expose on this injustice. Which leads to my next resolution...

Imagine my disappointment when I turn on Animal Planet and see nothing but meerkats. And then when they have a "dog show" I see oddities like this:



"Animal Cops" is a great title for a show, but the cops aren't animals!! They're played by humans instead. The poor dogs on the show hardly look like the best Hollywood has to offer, and in my opinion they come off looking like victims. So then I turn on a show that sounds really good: "Dog the Bounty Hunter." But there's no dog, only a very hairy human (or two). I mean, are there not enough dogs in the world to star in these shows?

So my next resolution is to (2) start my own TV show! I haven't decided whether to pitch it to the networks or to Nickelodeon, but if the humans let me I might even try HBO. Working title: "Dog the Bunny Hunter!"

This show will require some better branding, which means that I need to (3) start my own line of sportswear: Smarty Gear. My main plan for advertising is to get my logo on a Nascar, and also have toys that will be placed in McDonald's Happy Meals or Captain Crunch cereal.

Which reminds me of my final resolution: I want to win a few more races so that I can (4) appear on a box of Wheaties. That is, if I don't roll out my own cereal brand first: Smarty Pops!

Happy New Years!