The Chronicles of Zippy
Dogs must put a stop to Halloween. Truly. We must.
We have just spent a few days camping, away from computers, telephones, television and most other forms of civilization. but my folks did think to bring their Nintendogs.
And having all that time with nothing to do other than dragging Daisy and me on long walks half a dozen times a day, they added to their kennel and now have three puppies, Laszlo, Alfonse and Fred. (Fred’s a girl.)
These dogs manage to find a strange assortment of items when they go out for walks, and so far have presented my folks with a model of the Space Shuttle, a green plumber’s cap, various useless items like sticks and broken cameras, and flowers that the dogs are apparently supposed to wear. I was somewhat jealous when Laszlo came across some teriyaki, but my folks have figured out that with the right set of scribbling on the game screen. it is possible to actually pull the dog away from the found food. Not easy—just like in real life—but possible.
Laszlo is turning out to be pretty good in the flying disc competition.
I can’t be too jealous of the Nintendogs: Daisy and I—the real dogs—are still getting our usual walks, swims and brushings, but I swear, if we miss so much as one single bit of kibble because of those puppies, I will chomp that silly game into slivers faster than Laszlo can scarf up fish sticks.
Against my advice, my folks now have the video game “Nintendogs.”
In the game, they selected a tri-colored Corgi puppy (at least they made a good choice) and named him Laszlo (end of good choices).
Laszlo, like all puppies, is a time sponge. Caring for Laszlo takes a lot of their time, and yet when they “take him out for a walk,” he still manages to misbehave by eating junk food off the street. I therefore can attest to the game’s sense of reality—I would do the same. Laszlo seems to come across an unusual number of stray fish sticks on the sidewalk, though. And tissue boxes. And a very large pair of sunglasses. He did not attempt to eat those.
Anyway, they pet him and wash him and take him to agility practice and every once in a while I hear them yell into the little microphone “Laszlo, sit!” or “Laszlo, jump!” and sometimes he actually does. He has some toys, but he is afraid of the ball that makes noise.
I think Laszlo is the dog they’ve always wanted: One with an “off” switch.
