National Puppy Day 2024

A message from an exceptional one.

A guest post by Cerberus, the world’s mightiest puppy:

Hello, humans. And I say that because who else would want to celebrate things they have no business celebrating? Vis: today.

If you are previously unaware of my existence, let me explain:

I, Cerberus, am the world’s mightiest puppy. I can bench press entire tons, run at the speed of light, and contort myself into the most athletic and gymnastic positions imaginable. Besides which, I have an IQ well past the genius range, and a mind that helps me disarm you verbally at every opportunity, as well as the capacity to mesmerize anyone in my sight do my bidding.

In short, I can destroy you and your home entirely with the force of an atomic bomb- if I so wish.

(That italicized bit is the key part.)

Obviously, I am not of your Earth. I am a Perro, an alien being who can trace her lineage back to the dog star, Sirius, via my father, while assuming my current Dalmatian form thanks to my mother.

Fortunately for you, I am a clean-living “good girl”- most of the time. I use my abilities to defend the world against evil, and there’s a lot of it about. When I’m not, I am the mild-mannered family pet, “Cuddles” (not my choice of name), whom no one would have ever suspected of any sort of mischief. (Though my already short fuse can threaten to become shorter given what I go through…).

It’s this I wish to address you about briefly. I may be the premier champion of my race, but even I cannot be everywhere at once. And it’s in those places and times where my fellow puppies are often abused. Not simply in those dark, satanic puppy films, but also among discordant domestic settings unlike mine.

There are some amongst you who consider me and my kind a mere gift for your children, to be disposed of when and if we become a “problem” you can’t handle. For anything from messing up the furniture to either going into heat or getting a hard-on for the ones going into heat.

My message is simple:

STOP!

If the dog is a “problem”, it is your fault and not theirs. You brought them home without reading the instruction manual first. You forgot we are living beings who grow and have desires and needs, and not toy trains. You brought them to the brink of malnutrition because you didn’t know how and when to feed them properly.

And you grossly underestimated our intelligence. Just because most of the time we don’t speak English within earshot of you, you think we’re dumb. We are not. We know well when we’re being treated kindly and when we’re kicked in the nuts, and our response to that will always be in kind.

You made your bed. Lie in it.

I’ll leave you with a request. Please treat we puppies kindly, and you will always see this:

And not this:

I believe I have made my point.