Dog Snot and other nonsense

Call me paranoid but I don't use my mailbox for anything but receiving anymore. Years ago some utility payments were stolen from my outbox and since that time I've taken to using the US government issued blue box located a few blocks from my house.

Taking the bills down to the mailbox gives me a good excuse to escape the often raging hormones in my house as well an opportunity to walk the dog.

The other night, while mailing out some invoices -- is there anything better than billing someone for services rendered? -- I noticed a young guy with a stack of flyers and a staple gun. After I deposited the envelopes in the box he started walking my way. He bent over to pet Nellie then offered to give me a card.

"Sorry", I said, "I didn't hear you."

"Let me give you my card" he replied, "I'm a professional dogwalker."

OK, I thought, but I was actually walking my dog. I didn't know I needed the services of someone to do the very thing I was doing at the time. In fact, I thought I had been doing a damn fine job of walking the dog. I let her mark bushes. I pick up her poop. And by the time she gets home she's huffing and puffing and wearing what appears to be a dog smile.

I circled the block thinking how odd it was that people were creating jobs for themselves by doing mundane activities which under normal circumstances could easily be done by the potential employer. It's as if I were to walk into a pizza joint, approach a family and offer to help finish their hot pepperoni pie.

"I'm a professional pizza slice eater" I would explain.

Then I took a closer look  at the young man's flyer. Turns out he's Certified and Insured to perform CPR on a dog. I had no idea. In the nine years I have been walking my dog, not once has she started choking or required anything resembling the Heimlich Manuever. Though once, with lightening-fast quickness, she did snag a squirrel in her mouth.

So as a precaution I've gone online and learned the proper method for administering CPR to my dog. It involves holding the dog's mouth closed and then putting a lip lock on the dog's wet, poop-sniffing nostril. The practice is so gross the woman in the youtube video did it on a K-9 doll.

I'm sorry Nellie but if a Kibble or a Bit goes down the wrong wind pipe, you're on your own.