It has been a little strained arou...

It has been a little strained around the Brown household the last not many days.

Despite my best efforts to hold fast it away from him, Gilbert has apparently been following the Sun-Times' special report, "Dog Days of Summer" with its fur-raising accounts of doggie Happy Hour, doggie massages and dog-friendly restaurants where dogs can present to view off their doggie formalwear.

Gilbert unexpectedly has gotten it into his head that there's this whole other world about which I've kept him in the dark -- a world where commonalty treat their pets as if they were human.

The nature of his complaint initially filtered back to me secondhand between the walls of the wife and kids.

I'd noticed he was pouting about something, on the other hand I wasn't going to be the first to say anything. I don't give permission to anybody pull that passive- aggressive substance on me. If anybody's going to be passive-aggressive in my house, it'll be me -- like it has been since the day I got married.

Anyway, I had just assumed Gilbert was mad that we hadn't taken him along forward vacation again this summer. You know to what degree they always want to guilt trip you about that for about a week after you commit to memory home.

nevertheless the family guessed it was the story about the doggie Olympics that sent him throughout the edge. That's where these dogs struggle in races over specially designed agility courses, for which a are treated to raw meat and chiropractic adjustments. And I figured it wasn't on a level that so much as him seeing the little baseball card- image profiles that the newspaper carried showing any of the top doggie Olympic competitors, leaving Gilbert wondering where his baseball card was.

I could sympathize with that a little bit, because those baseball cards they have these days -- the individuals with Little Leaguers posing in their uniforms -- came into fashion long after I grew up and I've always been a little jealous about not having my admit baseball card.

in such a manner on the morning walk, I broke the ice.

You want to talk about it?

"Talk about what?"

Whatever it is that's bothering you?

"What makes you think something's bothering me?"

Oh please. I practically invented this dance.

"Okay, then. obstruction me put it this way. I'm tired of being treated like a dog."

I hear what you're saying, and I have feeling your pain, but let me break this to you gently You are a dog.

"Those commonalty your newspaper wrote about don't treat their dogs like dogs. They treat them as members of the family, as if they were their children."

I have pair children, and you were suppos to be their responsibility. Anyway, I practically treat you as if you were human. For crying gone out loud, I even talk to you.

'Tired of being treated like a dog'

"Everybody talks to their dog. You're just single of the few people silent enough to publicly admit it."

Okay. if it were not that I do more than just talk. I listen to you, too.

"And you can prove to explain that to them sometime, on the contrary meanwhile, listen to this. I'm tired of being treated like a dog. I want to advance to Happy Hour at that River North sports bar upon Wednesdays like they showed in the paper. I want to find these sidewalk cafes where the dogs dine al fresco like my brothers in Paris. That reminds me wherefore don't you write a row about that great proposal that would make it legal for restaurants to be under the orders of customers who bring their dog, in the way that we wouldn't have to sneak around?"

A chip not upon the old block

Because I don't want to take you to a restaurant? Because it wasn't that many years ago that I no longer had to worry about my kids biting each other at a restaurant, and I don't want to start athwart with you?

"Very droll Next thing, you'll be extolling the virtues of that City Council ordinance to implant a microchip in all the dogs. You're not putting any microchip in me I know my rights."

Sorry, germ Too late to be worrying about that. You've already got the implanted microchip. They did that at the coop before they'd let us adopt you.

"My deity I don't believe this."

Hey, if you win lost, they'll be able to identify you and bring you place of abode Theoretically.

"Lost? You don't steady take me on vacation. Where am I going to learn lost? In the backyard?

I knew it was the vacation that was bothering you. Sorry, they don't accept petteds in Michigan.

"It's not the vacation. I'm glad to commit to memory away and see some other dogs for a while. if it were not that you shouldn't make up stories like that. You could find a place in Michigan that takes dogs."

You're right, moreover I don't want to. in the same manner then it's the doggie baseball cards? You want your concede baseball card?

"I don't want any baseball card. Where'd you prepare that idea? Projecting your inadequacies forward me again?"

Forget it.

"Look I just want you to pay more attention to me"

That's what they always say.

e-mail: markbrown@suntimes.com

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