By Dick Wolfsie
It’s a ritual. Toby, my beagle companion, retrieves the morning newspaper from the driveway and deposits it at my feet. This daily ceremony is followed by a wistful stare and the occasional woof, a reminder that a successful delivery should be followed by a treat.
But the other morning, the dog didn’t make his traditional hasty return to the front door. Instead, I noticed he was burying the daily news in the bushes. As he dug furiously in the soil, I suspected something was amiss. Sure enough, when I retrieved the paper, I discovered the source of his angst. The headline read:
THEY LOOK LIKE SNOOPY, BUT THEY ACT LIKE WEREWOLVES
Incredible, but true. Apparently, packs of wild beagles have been spotted roaming Long Island, N.Y., terrorizing homeowners. Let’s not kid ourselves. Isn’t this a nightmare we’ve all had?
The story goes on to say that residents of several communities have had to head for safety. One woman said that when she saw a wild pack of dogs running down the street, she ran into her house, pulled down the blinds, barred the door and hid all the Pup-Peroni strips. She said it was the scariest thing she had ever seen since the infamous dachshund rampage of l976 when Oscar Mayer was shooting a commercial spot and ran out of Greenies treats for the 200 extras on the set.
Now while all this is happening on the East Coast, the Left Coast was not to be outdone. This is, after all, the home of Hollywood, where terrifying movies like “Snakes on a Plane,” “The Howling” and “101 Dalmatians” have scared the pants off moviegoers and resulted in big bucks at the box office. But who could have predicted news like this:
GIANT SQUIDS INVADE CALIFORNIA COASTLINE
Squids weigh up to 60 pounds and squirt ink — kind of ironic because that also describes me in the third grade. Some enterprising Californians have capitalized on this influx of the cephalopods by organizing fishing trips and sightseeing excursions for tourists, often well-to-do New Yorkers who think calamari is bred on farms before it is breaded. Guides point out that the giant squid (scientific name, Architeuthidae) differs from the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). This distinction will matter little when you and one of the creatures end up eye to eye on your next scuba diving adventure.
So why aren’t New Yorkers capitalizing on their own opportunity to make a buck? I don’t know about you, but I’d pay $12.50 for a bus tour to see rampaging beagles that sniff their way through the suburbs of Long Island, tipping over garbage cans, marking their territory, and eating an occasional toy poodle.
My brother, who drives a cab in New York, apparently has already had several requests from tourists to drive the Long Island Expressway, hoping to catch a glimpse of this phenomenon. Some folks from Wyoming told him they had tired of coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions; they had come to The Big Apple for some real action.
I still feel awful for my dog, Toby. He was burying the newspaper to protect the beagle image, concerned that such bad PR might have a deleterious effect on hound adoptions across America. You may recall that a beagle recently gained great prominence by being best in show at Westminster two short years ago. But fame can be fickle. Having a cute nose and big ears doesn’t mean you will always be popular. Just ask President Obama.
