The Canine Kitchen Corp

Anyone who wonders what it would feel like to be under 24 hour surveillance by the CIA, the FBI, and Homeland Security has obviously never owned a beagle. Dog experts do not think highly of the intelligence or trainability of the beagle. This underestimated little hound always makes the top ten dumbest dogs list, but that is because his real genius lies in one area and one area alone- manipulating his owner into giving him food.

Any food. Of any kind. I have read that pet food companies will not use beagles for taste testing because the dog lacks the discrimination of the true gourmand. My beagle would eat a card board toilet paper roll if I acted as though it was food. He would puke it up later, hiding it behind the couch to save face.

The beagle misses no cue. The refrigerator door opening. The sound of a styrofoam take-out container opening. The slight clink of the can-opener. If one is in the kitchen and cannot see one's beagle tread carefully for you are about to fall over him . Did you really think he was in the other room? Anyone who does not believe me has only to enlarge some of the photos on this blog. Can anyone spot the beagle? It isn't difficult.

My beagle has perfected the art of standing up on his hind legs for minutes at a time. Working beagles find rabbits with their noses, not by standing up and scouting the horizon. I believe this evolution in beagle behavior came about with the invention of the kitchen counter . And they call beagles stupid! I once saw a show on Animal Planet about a lady dog trainer called into an English home where the beagle had learned to open the refrigerator and the pantry door. I felt this woman was racing against time to rehabilitate this dog before the animal dropped dead of morbid obesity or required costly Lap Band surgery.

Even as I write this post I am being watched. I went to heat up some coffee and was followed by the beagle and the Shih Tzu he is secretly training. I know what they are up to. One plans to trip me and the other plans to grab what I drop. Hot coffee! That should teach them. Humans can play this game too.