Bet a lot of us have this new disease! VBG
Linda
NEW DOG VIRUS
We have identified a new disease, probably caused by a virus, among
dog-owning people. It apparently has been in existence for a considerable
time, but only recently has science identified the disease, and begun to
study it. It is called Acquired Canine Obsessive Syndrome or ACOS.
At first ACOS was originally considered to be psychological in origin, but
after two young researchers here suddenly decided to become show breeders we
realized that we were dealing with an infectious agent.
Epidemiologists here have identified three stages of the disease, and
typical symptoms.
Stage 1
1. You think that any show within 300 miles is close.
2. You begin to enjoy getting up at 5 in the morning to walk and feed
dogs.
3. It is fun to spend several hours a day grooming dogs.
4. You think you are being frugal if you spend less than $3,000 a year
on shows. 5. You can't remember what it was like to have just one
dog.
Stage 2
1. Your most important factor when buying a car is how many crates you can
fit in it.
2. When you look for a house, the first thing you think of is how many
dogs you can kennel on the property.
3. Your dog food bill is higher than the grocery bill.
4. You spend as much or more on Veterinarians as you do on Doctors.
5. You have to buy more than one vehicle a year because you keep burning
out the 7 year or 70,000 mile warranty going to shows.
6. You have no money because of showing dogs.
7. You have more pictures of your dogs than you do of your family.
8. Your idea of a fun vacation is to hit a show circuit 9. Most of your
conversations revolve around dogs.
Stage 3
1. You wake up in the morning to find that you have put the kids in
the crates and the dogs in the beds last night.
2. You know each dog's name and pedigree, but can't figure out who the
stranger in the house is, and it turns out to be your spouse.
3. Your neighbors keep insisting that those kids running around
your house are yours.
4. You keep telling the kids to "heel", and can't understand why they
won't. And why they keep objecting to the choke chain.
5. You've been on the road showing so long that you can't remember where
you live.
6. You cash in the kids college trusts fund to campaign the dogs.
7. Your family tells you "it's either the dogs or us!" and you choose the
dogs.
Do you have this dreaded disease? Well there is hope. In the course of our
research we have found that most cases seem to stop at Stage 2 and remain
chronic. We have, with great difficulty, managed to acquire several Stage 3
ACOS patients. They are currently in our isolation wards, where we are
studying them
to gain a better understanding of this disease. It is a sight, seeing these
formerly vibrant people as they shuffle around their rooms in endless
Triangle or L-Patterns, making odd hand motions (delusions of holding a
leash?) and making chirping
noises or repetitively saying "cookie" in a high pitched voice. Merely
saying the word
"Westminster" can send them into an uncontrollable frenzy.
Unfortunately, there isn't much hope for these cases, but with time and
research we hope to further understand this disease and come up with a
cure. We are now attempting to isolate the causative agent, and may be
able to develop a vaccine in then near future. An interesting sidelight of
this disease
seems to be that exposure at an early age has an immunizing effect.
Several people afflicted with ACOS at Stage 2 and Stage 3 have close
family members (children, wives, husbands) who have absolutely no signs of
the disease. It is thought by some that this may be due to some
environmental effects, to an age related immune function, or maybe the fact
that people in these
stages of disease tend not to associate with their close family members, due
possibly to memory deficit induced by the disease--that is, in layman's
terms, they don't remember they have close family members!
What can you do to prevent this disease? Until a cure is found,
prevention is the best measure. Avoid kennels advertising "show
dogs", since it may be that the dogs are carriers of this disease.
Leave town on those days the local newspapers inform you of a dog show
in the area. If you inadvertently come in contact with an ACOS person,
leave as soon as possible (they do tend to cling) and thoroughly shower,
preferably with a germicidal soap. If you are living with one take
comfort in the fact that if you haven't succumbed yet, you are probably safe.