In a message dated 8/16/2002 5:31:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes:

Then you wouldn't have had to expend mental energy remembering your concern for the mental health of some dogs you never met that are now basking in the plushies.

Dan,

My concern goes further as while I was being told that the dogs were off to the beachfront sanitarium I was thinking about the yearly end-of-season spate of purebred dogs, the emaciated ones that we see with dirty coats and mad eyes lurking just past the garbage cans, dropped off to scurry around our life of the unHamptons, leastways, 'til the pound officers, happily pulling down overtime for September, catch up.

But pleasant thoughts... yesterday on the subway, in the hot hot masonry oven of NY, a young woman was sitting with a Jack terrier puppy that was full of energy. It kept biting on the girl's fashionably upscale paper grocer bag, a great many little holes were there, nipping at the girls nose and her waving one hand in front of her face and trying to hold the dog with the other, the imp wrestling with its leash, jumping up, wiggling around. Finally it dumped the contents of the girl's water bottle all over the plastic bench. Nothing melted, thankfully, it was not a movie or a bad dream. A nice young standing fellow used his spare shirt to wipe off the bench.

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