ARF

On the front page of today's big city newspaper comes the earth-shattering headline: "PETA opposes making cairn terrier state dog." Seems some brilliant Kansas legislator from Winfield has introduced such an important bill because Toto from the movie WIZARD OF OZ was a cairn, therefore: "...the cairn is as much of Kansas as sunflowers are." Ah, what brilliant logic. What next? A State Witch? (May I be the first to nominate myself?)

PETA is picking a bone with Kansas because the animal welfare organization fears such a designation of ANY dog will promote puppy mills--similar to that big brouhaha we had with turtle mills a few years ago when the Box Turtle was declared the State Reptile. The Flaming Bore has thought over this legislative proposal quite carefully and plans to join PETA's protest--but for a different reason. If Kansas is going to have a State Dog (which, in my opinion should be the Annoying Barker rather than the cairn) then there'd darned well better be a State Cat. Critter and Fluffy demand equal rights!

And if and when such genius legislation is introduced in our esteemed state, may I be the first to propose that the ubiquitous Spraying Stray be given consideration as the official Kansas State Cat. They're everywhere! In fact, based on my very unscientific studies, there are more of this "breed" in my neighborhood alone than there are sunflowers in the entire state of Kansas. It's true!

I encourage my readers to pounce on my bandwagon and "Give Cats a Chance" to have proper recognition. Based on what I read in the newspaper this morning, Kansas has already gone to the dogs.