So a dog walks in to a sushi bar…

First, a note: I fully support the efforts to bring awareness about the dangers of SOPA. And if you happen to have no idea what I’m talking about, or why Wikipedia and reddit don’t work, well, the info is all out there. SOPA/PIPA stinks, and as a small potates blogger, the implications horrify me.

That being said, I decided not to black out the site for two reasons:

1. I doubt this site going dark is going to be the tipping point for anyone to say, “well, I thought SOPA was a good idea, but the thought of life without pawcurious is just too much, so I’m changing my mind.” I’ll leave the hand wrangling to all the high school kids freaking out over a day without Wikipedia.
2. Most importantly, I couldn’t figure out how to make the blackout plugin work. Seriously. So here we are. Happy Wednesday.

Monday, I got to go on our local Fox station to talk about ways to keep healthy with your pet. It was a perfect opportunity: I have Brody, who is action central, and Koa, who is a couch potato. There’s something for everyone and dogs of all fitness levels out there.

I brought both of them, unsure of which dog I was going to end up using in the segment. Both Brody and Koa had gotten a turn on the GoPet treadmill that we would be using in the piece (which is entirely deserving of its own post, by the way); I was leaning towards Brody, since he had just gotten his feathers crimped and was looking especially fluffy that morning. Plus he runs faster on the treadmill than Koa does.

I began to rethink that idea when we got to the station and Brody made it clear that our morning activity was not enough to tide him over. He was still full of Brody-ness. While we waited for our turn, I put him on the treadmill to let him run off a little extra steam, thinking that might do the trick.

In the meantime, the producers came out and started setting up tables next to the treadmill for another upcoming segment.

Now you know I am a chef fan. I am more into chefs than I am into celebrities. So it was with a mixture of excitement and apprehension that I recognized the chef from Terra, one of my favorite San Diego restaurants. It’s Restaurant Week, so everyone wants to promote their place. Which is great, except there are two things that don’t mix well, and that is my dog and low-lying tables covered in food.

I looked at the chef. I smiled. He looked at my dog. He backed up. Then he made sure the guy from the sushi place had the table closest to the treadmill, which was VERY CLOSE.

The sushi chef  from Banbu took it all in stride. He was NOT MESSING AROUND. He didn’t bring a selection from the restaurant, he brought the whole entire menu. Tuna rolls, whole urchins, something large with tentacles. The table was groaning under his bounty from the sea. I feel completely confident that he could have held off an entire army of Brody-ninjas if need be, but really, I’d prefer not to test the theory.

The other chef, having brought maybe 5 dishes tops, finished setting up about 20 minutes ahead of the other guy then had nothing to do but settle in and watch alongside me and the dogs. You can see him beginning to wonder if perhaps he should have packed a couple extra dishes.

Brody, an expert counter surfer when the counters are actually much higher than this, viewed the proceedings with interest. “What wondrous event have I been brought to?” he was wondering. “What world of oceanic doggy delights am I about to experience?”

In the meantime, I’ve figured out that the segment will involve me with the anchor, and one dog on the treadmill, and that is it. Whoever I can hold and still talk is who I need to go with. There is pretty much no way I can wrangle two dogs and still carry on a conversation. I looked at Koa. She looked at me. I looked at Brody. He looked at the sushi.

Although everyone secretly hopes to make a hugely popular video that goes viral on YouTube, “Errant veterinarian-owned Golden overturns $1k worth of sushi on live morning TV” is really not the way I want to go about it.