When Tad Toomay, aka Herb Canine, succumbed to cancer two years ago, we lost a good man, great friend, and fabulously funny member of the Bay Woof team. He loved the holiday season, so in his honor we dug up a few tantalizing tidbits from his dozens of columns to share with you this month. For optimum enjoyment, you are encouraged to sing – not just read – his fractured version of The Christmas Song. We miss you, Tad!
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I wonder what it would be like to get so crazy with the joy of having a body that I’d think nothing of plunging into the chilly spindrift at Baker Beach – all for a chewed-up tennis ball. To be able to express unbridled affection even while bridled to leash and collar. And wouldn’t it be nice to have the natural intelligence to simply cock one’s head, snort, and skip away from a rude gesture, rather than “processing” the experience ad infinitum?
Zorba the Greek said, “Clever people and grocers, they weigh everything.” But dogs don’t. Even if they could think abstractly, they’d dismiss most of our human preoccupations as irrelevant to the moment and so not worth the trouble.
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When it comes to animals and the holiday season, reindeer reign. But dogs aren’t completely neglected. There is the Grinch’s dog, unwilling accomplice to the theft of Christmas. And there’s this bit of doggerel from E.B. White of Charlotte’s Web fame: “My Christmas will be a whole lot wetter and merrier/If somebody sends me a six-weeks-old Boston terrier.”
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I was sipping an Irish coffee the other day in a dimly lit pub south of Market when I caught sight of one of those mass-produced canine club paintings. You know, the ones depicting various dogs dressed in old-timey clothing, sitting around a table smoking cigars, drinking booze, and playing poker?
My keenly homed aesthetics should have been offended, but finding the place at least devoid of a dusty moose head wearing a Davy Crockett cap, I decided I could loiter a bit while pondering the vagaries of taste…
Just what is the mass appeal of those jowly, pugnacious beer-dawgs on the wall? Maybe such depictions affirm that it’s okay to indulge your inner dog, that it’s natural to wanna hang out with the pack, devour bad food without worrying about it, and slurp down whatever they pour in your water dish without a twinge of guilt.
I agree that it’s great to indulge now and then, to emulate our canine comrades once in a while. In fact, let’s found a brand new observance: National Going to the Dogs Month!
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The Doggy Christmas Song
(by Herb Canine – aka Tad Toomay – with apologies to Mel Torme and Bob Wells)
Chow Chows wrestling by an open fire
Black Lab licking at your nose
Carols yowled by an all-Beagle choir
And sled dogs pulled by Eskimos.
Every doggy knows that turkey dinner table scraps
Help to make the season bright
With master’s bed free for long winter naps
Because the parties last all night.
They know the mailman’s on his way
He’ll leave a bag of goodies once he’s chased away
And every bitch’s pup will join the race
To chew those socks that dangle from the fireplace.
And so I’m offering this simple phrase
Of dogs (and Allen Ginsburg, too):
Although it’s been said many times, many ways
Happy Howl-i-days to you!
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Main article photo by: stock.xchange
