Piglet Flu (P1D1 Virus)……
…..Remember Prairie Dog Bob?……. I had almost forgotten about him as he has been gone on some extended adventure for a couple of months……. Actually everything around here had become calm and serene…… Well, he finally burst into MR Headquarters yesterday, wheezing, sneezing, coughing, and sweating….. Not only was his face pale, his fur even looked pale…… As he collapsed onto the closest chair, I noticed he had a thermometer sticking out of his mouth and was mumbling incoherently about not feeling well…… I said, “No lie, you look like Death warmed over”….. I immediately grabbed a dust mask and slapped it on….. I didn’t know what he had, but, I was sure I didn’t want it……
After I gave him some allergy and cold medication, he finally calmed down enough to tell me he had the Piglet Flu (P1D1 Virus) – the Prairie Dog version of the Swine Flu (H1N1 Virus)…… I still wasn’t sure that I wasn’t in danger of contracting whatever PDB had, so I tightened the mask up and began sanitizing any and everything in the entire HQ…… It smells just like a hospital in here now….
PD Bob seems much better today, and, I don’t think I contracted anything new – my allergies are so bad, I can’t really tell….. As soon as he wakes up I’m going to quiz him as to where he has been and just what is Piglet Flu as compared to Swine Flu….. Yes, I still have my mask on…… More to come…..
August 31st, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Maybe he was doing some investigative work on the swine flu vaccine & accidentally got inoculated, while intoxicated.
September 1st, 2009 at 10:12 am
Yeah, I did notice that his stainless steel flask of PDB’s special Harvey Wallbanger mix was completely empty….. He did come out of his stupor long enough to mumble something about how bad things were going in Washington, and, that “We the People” were in a hand basket headed straight down the old U-bend….. As soon as I can get the whole story out of him, I’ll Post PDB’s full Washington Report……
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Is it possible PDB is getting a little senile? Does anyone really know his age? Consider this:
The world’s oldest dog, a dachshund named Chanel, died of natural causes Friday at the reported age of 147 dog years. On the occasion of her 21st birthday (in human years), Christopher Beam wrote the following “Explainer” column on the proper way to calculate a dog’s age.
The oldest dog in the world, a dachshund from Long Island named Chanel, turned 21 on Wednesday. Some news reports listed her age as 120 in “dog years.” Others said she was 147. Which is it?
Chanel is about 113 dog years old. A “dog year” is a measurement that puts the age of a dog in the context of a human lifespan—in other words, if Chanel were a person, how old would she be? Most people think of one “human year” as equivalent to seven “dog years.” But that’s a bad predictor of longevity. The official formula, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, equates the first year of a medium-sized dog’s life to 15 years of a human’s. The dog’s second year equals nine years for a human. And after that, every year feels like five for a dog. (Calculate your pet’s age in dog years here.)
This formula, however, varies depending on the dog’s weight. Bigger dogs tend to have shorter lives, and thus age faster in dog years, while smaller dogs live longer, and thus age slower in dog years. (This discrepancy is due in part to the fact that big dogs are more likely to have debilitating arthritis and stomach problems.) The life expectancy of a Great Dane, for example, is just eight years, so a 4-year-old Great Dane is already a whopping 35. That said, calculating dog years is far from an exact science, as evidenced by the fact that the AVMA’s calculator lumps all dogs more than 90 pounds—including 200-pound St. Bernards—into one category.
The formula has also changed over time, along with human and doggie life spans. Life expectancy for humans born in 1901 was 49 years. Now it’s 77. Dogs also live longer than they used to. In 1987, 32 percent of dogs lived past six years. Now about 44 percent do.
Researchers have long been intrigued by the ratio between human and canine life spans. In 1268, an inscription was etched into the floor of Westminster Abbey calculating the date of Judgment Day using the life spans of God’s creations, including the dog’s, which was considered to be nine years, and a person’s, which they said was 81 years. Eighteenth-century naturalist Georges Buffon noted that dogs lived roughly 10 to 12 years, compared with the human life span of 90 to 100 years.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that the phrase “dog years” started to appear. It’s unclear who coined it, but it was current by the 1960s, when some math textbooks had students calculate their age “in dog years.” In the 1970s, Alpo commercials featuring actor Lorne Green popularized the seven-to-one conversion: “Duchess is 13. That’s like 91 to you and me.”
The phrase “dog years” should not be confused with “dog days,” which originated in ancient times as a reference to the period in summer when the star Sirius—or the “Dog Star”—once rose with the sun. It is also distinct from the phrase “a dog’s years,” which means a very long time.
September 4th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Concerning PDB’s condition, check out the new Post – That’s weird, you bringing up the subject of senility….. I had the idea for the Post a couple of days ago, but, just now getting around to Posting it……
All the dog info is very informative…… I’m always interested in the origins of widely used phrases and sayings that I’ve heard all my life….. It’s a shame that most people disregard origins and history as boring and useless….. I firmly believe in the old axiom that the lack of our study of the past dooms us to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, and, we’re definitely in a “Ground Hog” (PDB hates that name) loop right now….. The only difference is that instead of repeating the same day – each day just gets worse and worse……
September 4th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Yesterday………..all my troubles seemed so far away. Alas.