ohmidog!

It’s not a new trick, but this sort of dog-human merging always seems good for a laugh, and it clearly was for the guys who made this video.

A German shepherd named Odin is the star. That’s his head poking through the shirt collar, gobbling up the peanut butter being fed to him by the human hands coming out of the jacket.

The video was posted March 25 and is already nearing half a million views.

Entitled, ”Odin Eating  Like a Person,” it’s a simpler version of “Two Dogs Dining in a Busy Restaurant,” which has 18.3 million views on YouTube. Here it is again:

Sometimes, and especially this week, keeping up with dog news can leave one a little depressed — just about always because of the misguided things people do to them.

Whiile we try to  maintain a balance, sometimes the feel-good stories seem to get overwelmed by the feel-bad stories.

At times like that, or sometimes just for the heck of it, we try to lighten things up.

And what could be funnier than a dog eating popcorn?

To this baby, at least, absolutely nothing.

(Source: Facebook)

Here’s a relatively recent addition to the many videos on YouTube about dogs who have mastered indoor plumbing.

This black lab can use the toilet for both number one and — though it’s a close call, bouncing in off the rim – number two.

And, unlike some of us, he (or she) seems to always remember to flush.

Got to admire this little fellow’s persistence.

The video was posted on YouTube by Peaceloveandpitbulls.org, which saves dogs from kill shelters in Las Vegas.

Coming very close to using words, this French bulldog makes what seems a heartfelt plea to be allowed up on the couch.

I vote to let him up.

Even sleeping dogs can be controversial.

Bizkit — possibly the most viewed sleeping dog ever — carried on to such extremes in her sleep that many, including her owners at one point, suspected she might have something seriously wrong with her.

Among the episodes her owners videotaped was one of Bizkit flailing on the floor, getting up, and running into a wall  — all seemingly in her sleep.

Some viewers found that funny, some did not. Some comments on the videos urged her owners to get her treatment, and speculated she might have a  neurological disorder.

Some commenters even suggested she was in need of an exorcism.

According to this feature on Bizkit on Animal Planet (below), Bizkit’s owners — in addition to getting her a sleep helmet — did get her medical attention.

They say their veterinarian told them nothing was wrong with Bizkit and that she was simply sleepwalking.

To see more sleeping dogs, click here, then click on the headline for the video.

We interrupt our regular Monday “Sleeping Dogs” feature to present some singing dogs.

For your Christmas Eve enjoyment, here are Crooning Cody and Singing Sierra, who have appeared here before, and also once made it on Anderson Cooper’s show.

They belong to Adam Yamada-Hanff, a friend of mine in Baltimore and proprietor of the website singingdogs.net.

“I have started to record a few special and unique versions of classic Christmas songs,” Adam informs me. “We are still working on a couple currently but we decided to start off with the well known classic, ‘Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer’ since that was requested via email by a fan of the singing dogs.

“While I was playing the song I started laughing, since it was just too funny not to laugh! Even after playing with Cody and Sierra for awhile it is still very hard not to laugh when they are both singing loudly together.”

Here they are performing “Oh Christmas Tree”:

Adam and  his family work with the National English Shepherd Rescue, Ltd.

As for our sleeping dogs, they’ll return next Monday.

My favorite all time dog cartoon in the New Yorker didn’t have a dog in it at all.

In fact, it wasn’t even a dog cartoon. It was lampooning humanity.

A doctor is examining planet Earth and gives his sad diagnosis:

“I’m afraid you’re infested with humans.”

It so well seemed to sum up  our planet’s predicament — and my growing view at the time that dogs are a more trustworthy and pleasant species to be around –  that I kept in pinned to my cubicle wall for several years, right up until I, after clawing about, escaped the cubicle.

There have been dozens of witty dog cartoons in the New Yorker over the years — more than twice as many as there have been of cats, according to this graphic presented on The Cartoon Bureau , the blog of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff:

“The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs,” with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, showcases 76 of them in a volume that would be a proud addition to any coffee table.

According to Mankoff, “The earliest dog cartoons that appeared in The New Yorker, in the 1920s, searched for the shared mental space between dogs and people by projecting personhood on the dogs, who are drawn realistically, and are still obviously real dogs.”

That hasn’t changed much.

Thus, in the cartoon world, you have talking dogs, dogs in business suits, and dogs badmouthing cats, such as in the cartoon to the left.

Dogs do none of those things.

That’s what makes the cartoons funny, and dogs so darn lovable.

You can order the book from Amazon here.

Let’s take a survey.

Watching this video makes you:

A. Think Bunk’s owners must love him very much to go to the trouble of blowing up all those balloons?

B. Worry about the possibility that Bunk might choke on those balloons?

C. Puzzled why those loud pops don’t scare him, as they would my dog?

D. Wonder why his family has a bathtub in the bedroom, or is it a bed in the bathroom?

E. All of the above?

A dog name Zeke displays his basketball skills.