XPost: alt.showbiz.gossip, alt.gossip.celebrities   
   From: agent-smith@two-blocks-on-your-left.com   
      
   polar  wrote in   
   news:45A05D79.D81F101B@winternet.com:   
      
   > Agent Smith wrote:   
   >   
   >>   
   >> You know, I bet those feral little lapdogs are FANTASTIC ratters.  A   
   >> few months ago, I heard a story on NPR about the only animal ever   
   >> awarded a medal by the British royalty.   
   >>   
   >> It was a terrier on one of the old wooden sailing ships; the ship had   
   >> gotten caught in a tight situation, and it was isolated and pinned   
   >> down for a month or more.  Onboard, they had a terrier, and the dog   
   >> was just methodically pickin' off the rats, one by one.  Although   
   >> they didn't say this in the story, I suspect that those rats may have   
   >> kept the crew from starving.  I don't remember how they got out of   
   >> the jam, but when they got back to port, the dog got a medal.   
   >>   
   >> I think ratting is one of the talents generally forgotten by dog   
   >> owners in this modern day.  We shouldn't ever forget that dogs   
   >> evolved to be compatible with people, because you can get a lot of   
   >> useful work out of dogs.  They weren't always just house pets for the   
   >> children.  America has are some extremely severely bombed out urban   
   >> areas, where ratting could come in *very* handy.   
   >   
   > There's a breed of dog called Rat Terrier, bred specifically to   
   > go after rodents.  They're a medium-sized short-haired dog   
   > that can be black, white or brown or a combination of these colors.   
   >   
   > My sister got a rat terrier named Lucy from the pound.  Lucy   
   > is a sweet well-behaved dog except when she's after a mole or a   
   > chipmunk.  Then she's crazy and won't stop tearing up the yard   
   > to get it.   
   >   
   > Mixed-breeds dogs are usually the smartest; something about   
   > the combining of DNA breeds does wonders for intelligence.   
      
   That's an interesting point.  Of the many things that dogs have been   
   bred for over the millenia, raw intelligence was probably never tried.   
   Kind of a scary thought, huh?  Instead of "Planet of the Apes," it would   
   be "Planet of the Dogs."  D:   
      
   "Say Bill, you know this place is really goin' to the dogs."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)