Cagle World

Editor’s note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s new book, “Tips from a New Dog Dad.” Read more chapters at ThurbersTail.com.

My Lab puppy, Thurber, was born on Christmas Day, 2020 — the best Christmas blessing I ever received.

But he bestowed even greater blessings on my mother and father.

In his 87th year, my father was facing a series of health challenges.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop — waiting for a middle-of-the night call to help pick him up from a fall — had become the norm.

Visits to my parents’ house were becoming less joyful and more stressful as my dad, with limited mobility, needed help getting in and out of his chair and had to ask his kids to assist with the many daily tasks he used to do himself so effortlessly.

We gave my father endless support as his needs grew but his decline brought sadness, and the sadness began permeating my parents’ home, hitting us hard every time we entered the front door.

That all changed the day I brought my puppy Thurber home.

Thurber’s first visit

The day I picked Thurber up in Punxsutawney, Pa., my plan was to drive directly to my mom and dad’s house.

I slipped into their house quietly through the garage and sneaked up the back steps.

I knew they’d be in the family room watching an old movie. That’s what they often did in the afternoons — and, sure enough, that is what they were doing.

In I walked, a soft cuddly puppy in my arms — and the room lit up like a Christmas tree.

The joy was immediate and, just like that, my mom and dad were transformed from their late 80s into giddy, 10-year-old children.

I set Thurber on my father’s lap and the puppy was in his glory, his tail wagging wildly. Dogs always loved my father and sensed instantly, and correctly, that he was the alpha male in the room.

The two played and cuddled a good long while as Thurber climbed all over my dad and found an especially comfortable spot between him and the arm of his recliner.

I brought Thurber over to my mom and she too was thrust into instant joy and affection. We never think of our parents as being children, but with a puppy in her arms my mother became a happy little girl.

It was as if her father, who died when she was only 19, was watching over her again — providing her with the warmth and security he did so well in her childhood.

After a time, my mother set Thurber on the floor, where I lay enticing him to play with me.

I laughed aloud as he jumped on me and showered me with his affection, but it was more than just puppy affection that brought me so much joy.

It was wonderful to feel the undivided love and playfulness my puppy directed solely at me.

Better yet, it made my mother and father happy to see their middle-aged son being made so happy by the puppy who would now be an integral part of his world.

An angel of joy

I stayed a few hours that Friday afternoon, the first time in months we were able to forget about my dad’s health woes — the first time we laughed in I don’t recall how long.

The power of a puppy is transformative, and my transformation was just beginning then, and continues still.

There is a saying I came across in which God is talking to a puppy and he says, “I removed your wings so they won’t know you are an angel.”

Well, on the day I brought Thurber home, he became an angel of joy to my father and mother.

I didn’t know that for the next year and a half I’d be able to bring him to my parents’ house for multiple visits that inevitably resulted in childlike happiness for us all — sadness left their home instantly every time Thurber visited.

And when Thurber celebrated his first birthday on Christmas Day of 2021, we had the celebration in my parents’ home, and it was a grand event full of laughter and joy.

I didn’t know last Christmas that my father would leave us nine months later — he’d leave us a few days after we’d celebrate his 89th birthday.

But I will treasure forever the many joyful visits Thurber and I made to my parents’ home, in which their difficult days were made so much brighter by a furry angel with hidden wings!

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is creator of ThurbersTail.com, which shares helpful pet-care tips and funny stories and videos featuring Tom’s beloved Labrador, Thurber. Email Tom at [email protected].

Is the glass half empty or half full?

In my experience it’s always been half full — and that’s one of many things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving.

We lost my father this year, and that leaves a huge hole in our hearts — until we focus on the life he lived so well and the many wonderful, loving memories of him my family and I will always have.

I got to experience 59 Thanksgivings with my dad, give or take — 59 cheerful gatherings in which he recited Grace before 40 or more cheerful extended family members.

I have random flashes of my dad throughout the days now — memories that come at me out of the blue.

I vividly remember one Saturday in December 1967, when I was 5.

It was uncharacteristically warm in Pittsburgh that year. My father was 34 then and his hair was black as coal. He stood nearly 6-foot-2, a powerful man.

As he lifted our Christmas tree off the roof of our white Ford station wagon, I marveled that his biceps and forearms were bigger than Popeye the Sailor Man’s!

It wasn’t too many years later that I – his only son — became his side-kick to complete multiple family tasks.

Every Thursday, after dinner, we boarded our Plymouth Fury III station wagon and headed to the Del Farm grocery store in a small suburban plaza one mile away.

I pushed the cart as I helped him work through the long shopping list my mother provided until the cart was packed to the ceiling.

When we finally pulled the loaded-down station wagon into our garage everyone in the house was alerted and the massive unloading process began. It was like a Red Cross relief operation!

And then the theme song for “The Walton’s” would begin to play, just as we settled down for our snacks and a new episode of one of my favorite shows.

I didn’t know then why I loved that wholesome family show so much, but I know now.

I loved it because my mother and father gave up so much to give so much to us and that still fills me with a profound sense of security.

The stress of feeding us on one income took its toll on my mom and dad.

When I was 18 we thought my dad had suffered a heart attack. I couldn’t stop the tears as I raced behind the ambulance taking him to the hospital.

But the doctor got his diagnosis wrong, and boy, was it wonderful to get my healthy, sturdy dad back home to celebrate the holidays that year.

I got my first nice car when I was 24, a 1986 Pontiac Firebird with T-tops, and I can still see my dad laughing out loud as he revved the motor and smoked the wheels — payback for the damage his lead-footed son had done to several of his cars.

I wasn’t thankful for his behavior that day, but it makes me laugh out loud now.

We are all lost in our own ways without my dad. My mother, with him nearly 70 years, is especially suffering, and for me that’s the most painful part.

But despite the grief, my glass is more than half full.

Thanksgiving for my family this year cannot in any way be the same without my dad there, but I’ll do my best to recite Grace in his absence.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

I’ve always loved dogs who talk in TV shows and movies.

I’ve also always loved jokes told by talking dogs.

Which is why this joke makes me laugh out loud:

A three-legged dog walks into a bar and sets his pistol on the table.

“I don’t want any trouble,” says the nervous bartender.

“I have no beef with you,” says the dog. “I’m looking for the man who shot my paw.”

I recently watched the 1959 movie, “The Shaggy Dog,” and laughed out loud when Fred MacMurray realizes that his son has been transformed into a talking, shaggy dog.

One of the first movies to feature a talking dog, it was a runaway Disney hit, and I think I know why.

Any human whose home is blessed with a wonderful, silly dog would love for their pups to be able to talk.

Even though some dogs may appear to be voicing human words, such as “I wuvvvv youuuuu,” Scientific American says that dogs cannot talk the way humans do — but scientists do make it clear that dogs can communicate with us.

Thurber and I communicate very well with each other every day.

He is way smarter than I ever expected him to be and he understands the many words, tones and gestures that I use when I ask him to do something or retrieve something.

He tells me when he wants to eat, play, help him get a ball that slid under a chair and many other things.

Thurber uses his eyes, various whimpers, groans and tones to communicate what he wants me to know or do.

When the matter is urgent — such as the need to go Number 1 or 2 — he knows a loud bark will get my immediate attention.

Dogs are way smarter than many people are aware. The average dog can learn about 165 words, but some dogs can learn more than 200 and even beyond 1,000!

If Thurber could talk, I know he’d tell the silliest, corniest jokes, such as this one:

“What do you call a Labrador who does Magic?”

“A Labrakadabrador!”

Or this one:

A dog walks into a dentist’s office one evening and says, “I think I’m a moth.”

The dentist says, “I’m sorry, buddy, but I can’t help you. You need to see a veterinarian.”

“I am seeing a veterinarian,” says the dog.

“Then why did you come to my office?” said the dentist.

“Your light was on,” said the dog.

The fact is, Thurber DOES “talk” in a series of funny videos featured on his blog, ThurbersTail.com. Watch him tell jokes at this link: ThurbersTail.com/FunnyVideos.

In any event, all of this talk about talking dogs reminds me of the fellow who sees a sign outside a house that reads: “Talking Dog for Sale.”

The fellow walks up to a dog sitting on the front porch, and the dog says, “May I help you mister?”

“You really can talk!” says the man. “You’re amazing!”

“My life has been amazing,” says the dog. “My talking skills helped me communicate with human authorities and other dogs to save avalanche victims in the Alps, as well as earthquake and hurricane victims all over the world. Now semi-retired, I spend my days telling jokes at the local children’s hospital.”

The fellow, flabbergasted, asks the dog’s owner, “Why on Earth would you want to sell an incredible dog like this?”

“Because he’s a compulsive liar!” said the dog’s owner. “He’s never left the yard!”

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is creator of ThurbersTail.com, which shares helpful pet-care tips and funny stories and videos featuring Tom’s beloved Labrador, Thurber. Email Tom at [email protected].

This week half the country will be upset by the midterm election results and half will be elated.

Regardless, politics is causing every one of us more stress than it ought to, but, believe it or not, there is, hopefully, still some humor that we can all enjoy.

Since Congress has a lower approval rating than polio, here are some fun lines to share:

It’s so cold today, the congresswoman had her hands in her own pockets.

The opposite of “pro” is “con,” so the opposite of progress is: Congress.

Q: What did the corrupt congressman order for lunch on Election Day? A: Stuffed ballots.

Here’s one of my favorite old congressperson jokes:

A congressman is walking through D.C. when he is approached by a mugger with a gun.

“Give me all your money,” says the mugger.

“You can’t rob me,” says the congressman. “I’m an esteemed member of the U.S. Congress.”

“Then give me all MY money!” says the mugger.

Too often, people think the argument in Washington is between Republicans and Democrats, but it’s really between the voters and the politicians and our ever-growing government, as this joke illustrates well:

Three contractors submit bids to fix a broken fence at the White House.

Contractor one tells a White House official he can do it for $800. Contractor two says he can do it for $700. Contractor three says he can do it for $2,700.

“How did you come up with such a high figure?” the official asks the third contractor?

“Easy,” says contractor three. “You give me $2,700. I give you $1,000. I keep $1,000. Then we hire contractor two to fix the fence for $700!”

We recently lost one of our greatest political humorists, P.J. O’Rourke, whose humor was filled with truth:

“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation,” he said, “the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.”

“There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please,” he said. “And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”

“A little government and a little luck are necessary in life,” he said, “but only a fool trusts either of them.”

I’ve long written about our rapidly growing government debt — I’ve documented its massive rise over the past decade — but nobody explained government waste better than O’Rourke:

“It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth,” he said. “Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.”

Alas, though human imperfections abound in our government and electoral process, matters could be worse, as one Russian citizen notes:

“Americans complain because it takes so long to get a definitive result from their elections,” he says. “In my country, we know our results months in advance!”

The best we can do during election week is remember that there will be other elections. Let us hope and pray the candidates who win are the ones that offer our country the best solutions.

In the meantime, the very best we can do is learn from the example of President Jimmy Carter.

Even though he only served one term, he left the White House with a tremendous sense of humor.

“My esteem in our country has gone up substantially,” he said, upon leaving office. “It is very nice now when people wave at me, that they use all their fingers.”

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

Friends turned on friends.

Family members spoke ill of other family members.

Strangers on social media wrote posts that are unprintable in most newspapers.

That’s what happened 21 months ago when I asked people for advice on what to name my new puppy.

At First, His Name Was Willy

During the eight weeks they nurtured my puppy and his eight siblings, his breeders, Mike and Maryanne, gave each of them a temporary name. They named my future puppy “Willy.”

He wasn’t the smallest in the litter, nor the largest. He wasn’t the best looking, nor the worst.

He was the most laid back, however.

Whereas some of the pups were clearly Type A personalities — bossy and demanding and way too smart, energetic and alert — my guy was sleepy and silly and happy to stand back from the pack.

“Willy” really was a good name for this pup and I was tempted to keep it.

But I had always had a name in mind for a puppy that I had stumbled upon decades earlier.

A Thurber Carnival

When I was in the 10th grade, in 1978, my best friend Ayresie and I found a paperback book on a shelf in his basement that had the cover torn off.

I’d later learn the book was called “A Thurber Carnival,” a collection of observations, short stories and, best of all, funny cartoons, produced back in the 1930s and 1940s by the famous New Yorker magazine humorist James Thurber.

The cartoons and captions were offbeat and original. Ayresie and I laughed out loud as we thumbed through the book looking at them.

Homework soon beckoned for Ayresie — unlike me, he was a dedicated student and went on to graduate from West Point — and I agreed to go to the local library with him so he could research a paper.

We took “A Thurber Carnival” with us.

Ayresie didn’t get much work done though because I kept pointing out the funny cartoons and captions and reading them to him.

We laughed out loud so often we got repeated warnings from the librarian to “keep it down.”

Then I came across a short story called “The Dog that Bit People.”

It’s about one of the many dogs that Thurber, a life-long dog lover, especially loved, even though this dog had a penchant for biting people.

The dog’s name was “Muggs.”

“There was one advantage to being a family member,” Thurber wrote, “Muggs didn’t bite family members as often as he bit strangers.”

Ayresie and I laughed so hard at that line the librarian finally kicked us out.

But I didn’t care, because that moment transformed my life.

James Thurber’s mastery with words and humor inspired me at that exact moment to become a writer.

Thurber shares his love of dogs throughout “A Thurber Carnival” and his other books, which I have read over and again. His humorous and affectionate drawings of the many pups he shared his life with are pure joy.

His writings and sketches would eventually leave me with another thought:

If I ever get a dog, I’m going to name him “Thurber.”

Passions Run High

“Thurber! You can’t name him Thurber!” shouted my otherwise soft-spoken sister, who had named her own dog “Snowball.”

“What the heck kind of name is Thurber?” said my friend, Griff, who has a Jack Russel named “Chip.”

“You need to name him a short, manly name like ‘Sam’ or ‘Jake’ or anything but a goofy name like ‘Thurber,’ you imbecile,” was the gist of the posts strangers left on my social media feeds.

Though some of the comments I was getting could be considered rude and belligerent, they were not without merit.

According to The Scotsman, “Max” is the most popular name for male dogs on the planet.

That is followed by nine other top names that include “Charlie,” “Buddy,” “Rocky,” “Jack,” “Milo,” “Toby,” Leo,” “Rex” and “Bruno.”

Though I love all of these names, I wanted to give my pup a more original name — one that related back to the very funny writings of James Thurber.

“Muggs,” the name of the dog that bit people, was one I’d considered.

“Now you’re talking,” said Griff. “‘Muggs.’ I dig it.”

“ ‘Muggsie!’ ” said my sister Lisa. “You have to name him something cute and ‘Muggsie’ is perfect.”

But I didn’t want to name my dog after a surly mutt who bit people.

I had considered “Rex,” too, since Thurber and his brothers had given that name to one of their many dogs.

But when it came right down to it, I had known what I’d name my future pup since that day in 1978 when Ayresie and I got booted from the library.

I Named Him “Thurber”

Despite my over-thinking and indecision, I kept coming back to the name “Thurber.”

I’ve always loved the sound of the name — the soft “thurrrrr” followed by the decisive “brrrrrr!”

Besides, my pup shared the warm, lovable look of many of the dogs James Thurber affectionately sketched.

As I said, he was unlike the other pups in his litter. He was content to sit in the background, observing his litter mates — much as his human, a writer, prefers to do.

Truth be told, I thought it would be pretty fun to probably have the only dog in the world named Thurber.

So naming him after one of America’s great humorists was definitely the way to go.

I called Mike and Maryanne and asked them to call my pup by his new name, and to do so immediately.

“ ‘Thurber’ it is,” said Mike.

(Share comments about how you named your dog at this blog link: www.ThurbersTail.com/dogname.)

But He Wasn’t the Only Dog Named Thurber  

When Thurber was nearly 18 months old — as he blossomed, his name most definitely reflected his inquisitive, playful, silly nature — my Uncle Bert called me.

“Your dog isn’t the only dog to go by the name of ‘Thurber,’ “ he said.

“He’s not?” I said, a little disappointed.

“In the 1960s, a famous singer gave one of her beloved dogs the very same name,” Uncle Bert said.

“Which famous singer?”

When he told me, I laughed out loud.

She is one of my favorite musicians of all time: Janis Joplin.

According to a New York Times article, she was a dog lover throughout her life and also named one of her beloved pups after the great humorist, Thurber.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is creator of ThurbersTail.com, which shares helpful pet-care tips and funny stories and videos featuring Tom’s beloved Labrador, Thurber. Email Tom at [email protected].

I’m already anxious about the outcome.

I speak of next week’s elections, and a modern malady the Mayo Clinic refers to as “Election Stress Disorder.”

“We notice it in our bodies, the tension in our shoulders,” says Dr. Robert Bright, a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist. “Sometimes people get GI (gastrointestinal) upset or headaches. People have trouble sleeping.”

Bright says the scary negative political ads aren’t helping our stress levels.

“He is the candidate who voted in favor of puppy mills and sugar rationing and making chocolate chip cookies illegal!” such ads may as well say.

Every time there’s an election, we’re told that it’s the most important in our lifetime — that if candidate XYZ wins, the sky will collapse, Earth will become a giant sinkhole, the Sun will stop shining….

If we let the hyperbole get to us, it’s no wonder it induces such a powerful stress response.

The origin of stress goes back to the early days of humans, when many creatures didn’t view us as their superiors, but as their lunch.

When a human saw a lion coming his way, he was overcome by stress. The stress brought on an adrenaline rush, and the adrenaline sent one message, loudly and clearly: RUN!

“Fight or flight” stress was an essential natural response to threats and it kept many humans from becoming another creature’s dinner.

But long after a human’s stress mechanism was much less needed for his survival, we continued to suffer from it in ways it was never intended to do.

We suffer stress when we see the high cost of the gasoline we must put in our cars — so we can drive to the grocery store where we are stressed by the price of food that has risen faster than you can say reckless government spending.

And now that, like it or not, politics has seeped into every moment of our waking lives, elections have become way more stressful than they once were.

No matter what happens next week, half the country will have a temporary moment of joy, if their candidate wins, and the other half will suffer — you guessed it — more stress.

Half the country will be certain this midterm election will have been the most fair and transparent in history, and the other half will be certain fraud caused their candidate to lose.

Whether happy or mad, though, one thing is for certain: many won’t be able to resist the urge to go on social media and argue about politics with friends, family and neighbors, which will cause even more stress.

And rather than cool down over political matters that are largely out of our control, we’ll get angrier and more vindictive and that will be the energy we carry into our holiday gatherings, where harsh and bitter words will be said that may harm relationships forever.

So what can we do to nip election stress in the bud, Dr. Bright?

We can relax, he says, and realize that all that we can control is our own vote and that it is no better or worse or more important than anybody else’s.

“And that’s the wonderful thing about living in a democracy,” he says. “We each have an equal stake.”

Besides, there’s another very important reason not to stress over our elections: The real stress doesn’t generally kick in until we realize we elected a bunch of buffoons.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

My 23-month-old Labrador, Thurber, makes me laugh out loud at least five times every day.

As I write this column — attempt to sit at my desk and write, that is — my silly puppy keeps dropping his ball at my feet, hoping to get me to play with him.

Which makes me laugh out loud.

My Mornings Start with Dog-Induced Laughter

I knew getting a dog would change my daily routine, but I had no idea how much he would improve my life and make me feel so cheerful.

In fact, it wasn’t until he arrived 21 months ago that I realized that several days would pass in my life in which I did not laugh a whit.

A lack of laughter is bad for us, our families, our friends and our entire civilization, if you ask me.

And, I dare say, as a civilization, we are taking ourselves way too seriously right now at the expense of cheerfulness and laughter.

As we laugh less, we become more anxious, agitated and angry and our civility towards our fellow citizens suffers.

Which is why I wish everyone could experience the joy of having a dog.

Every morning, after Thurber eats breakfast and does his business, I lay back down to read the news on my phone and to ease into the morning.

And Thurber jumps up on the bed with a ball or bone in his jaws, tail wagging with mischief in his eyes, as he dares me to try to take it from him — which causes me to laugh out loud.

Dog-Induced Laughter Promotes Civility and Empathy

Thurber’s antics make me laugh so hard and so often, I can only imagine how much public civility would be improved if everyone in our country could experience the daily joy he brings me.

Civility is “the foundational virtue of citizenship,” developmental psychologist Marilyn Price-Mitchell wrote a decade ago in Psychology Today.

It’s behavior “that recognizes the humanity of others, allowing us to live peacefully together in neighborhoods and communities.”

She explained that the psychological elements of civility include awareness, respect, self-control and empathy — the very characteristics a professional dog trainer is currently helping me develop in Thurber.

Empathy — the ability to understand and share the feelings of another — is certainly a skill we Americans are losing in our increasingly isolated, angry, social-media-driven world.

But pets like my best buddy Thurber can help bring us together and help us restore our argumentative nation to a civil, well-functioning republic.

Child development specialist Denise Daniels explains in The Washington Post that “emotional intelligence,” or EQ, is a measure of empathy.

She points to the findings of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, which researches EQ and teaches people how to improve it, and notes that a high EQ score is the best indicator of a child’s success — as well as an adult’s.

Which brings us back to the value of pets.

Daniels writes that a variety of research in the U.S. and U.K. has shown a correlation between attachment to a pet and higher empathy scores.

I know my buddy, Thurber, has certainly improved my empathy and EQ score.

How to Promote a More Cheerful World

I didn’t realize that my emotions for my puppy would run so deep, or that I would work so hard and do so many things to give him the happiest, healthiest life he can experience.

Plus, everywhere we go — and he loves few things more than jumping into the backseat of my truck — he makes total strangers smile, laugh and converse with me.

His simple presence can bring human strangers together. He not only makes us forget the petty human world — for a little while, at least — but he reminds us that a simple but magnificent creature like him can turn the most hardened souls back into empathic, laughing, happy children.

As I work hard to train Thurber to be a great dog who exhibits compassion, self-discipline, courtesy and empathy, he is training me right back to improve all of those very same skills.

I can no longer imagine what my world would be like without my lovable Labrador enriching it for me — and everyone else who meets him every day.

As I said, I wish all of my fellow citizens could become more cheerful by inviting a furry family member into their homes.

It wouldn’t solve all of the world’s problems, but we’d certainly be more cheerful and civil as we work to solve them!

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell is creator of ThurbersTail.com, which shares helpful pet-care tips and funny stories and videos featuring Tom’s beloved Labrador, Thurber. Email Tom at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: Long-time syndicated humor columnist Tom Purcell has just launched a new, second weekly column, called Thurber’s Tail. It features pet advice, humorous pet videos and stories about his beloved pup, Thurber the yellow Lab.

I love Halloween and all the fun and the silliness it entails.

However, as a new dog dad — my lovable Labrador, Thurber, is in his 22nd month — I’m learning that our beloved pets face no small number of Halloween risks that we must protect them from.

Beware Halloween Treats

Many Halloween treats are dangerous to our furry friends. Most pet lovers know that chocolate is toxic to both cats and dogs.

But did you know that candies and gum may have artificial sweeteners that are also toxic to pets?

According to The American Kennel Club, an ingredient called xylitol is in many sugar-free confections, but

it is also found in items such as toothpaste and peanut butter — beware of your neighbor’s home-baked cookies.

Gum and hard candies may also be difficult for pets to digest. Large quantities of either — which is the only quantity Thurber eats if he is able to get at a full bowl of treats — can “clump up in the stomach and cause a risk of obstruction,” says the AKC.

Raisins, which are sometimes given out as Halloween treats, are great for humans, but did you know they can cause renal failure in dogs?

Candy wrappers, too, pose considerable risk to our pets, as they “can become lodged in your pet’s throat or intestinal tract, requiring surgery to remove,” says the AKC.

Prepare Your Pet for the Startling Sounds of the Season

Thurber goes berserk every time someone knocks on the door, so you can imagine Halloween night is going to be challenging for him.

If you’re planning on handing out candy this year, American Humane recommends training sessions to help desensitize your furry friend to door knocking and the commotion of multiple visitors by creating positive associations with these sounds.

“Have someone knock on the door and then give your pet a treat,” says American Humane. “With enough repetitions, your pet will start to associate treats every time someone is at the door.”

If your pet is especially shy or fearful, however — or, like Thurber, still too much in the puppy phase to be trained to chill when the door knocks — it may be best to relocate him or her to a safe quiet room.

My plan is to place Thurber in the family room downstairs, where I will turn up the TV volume as he watches his favorite show — he loves “Life Below Zero,” in which his fellow canines often run and playing in the Alaskan bush.

He also loves The Allman Brothers on the stereo, so that will be my plan B if the TV doesn’t do the job.

Make Sure Pet Halloween Costumes Are Safe

AKC says the trend of dressing dogs in costumes has increased over the years, but safety considerations are important.

Is the costume comfortable? Does it allow your pet to move freely without constraint? Could a tie or band cause your pet to choke or trip?

AKC says that it is fairly easy to locate and purchase costumes online created specifically for pets, however, that does not necessarily ensure their safety.

“Beads, snaps, buttons, ribbons, elastic and fabric can all be intestinal hazards,” says AKC. “Never purchase costumes for pets that have dangling parts or pieces that can be chewed off.”

AKC further warns that costumes can result in “overheating, impaired vision and even difficulty breathing, if it covers the face or is too restrictive around the pet’s neck or chest.”

One last note on pet costumes: Some pet lovers think the act of dressing up our furry family members in silly costumes can be embarrassing at best and humiliating at worst.

Thurber certainly refuses to dress up for Halloween and he explains why — did I mention Thurber is a talking dog? — in a series of humorous Halloween videos posted at ThurbersTail.com.

Happy Halloween!

Our furry family members should participate in family events as much as any other member of the family, but we need to take extra precautions to be sure they stay safe, happy and healthy.

Let’s conclude my first ThurbersTail.com humor and pet-advice column with this canine-inspired Halloween joke:

Question: What do you call a large dog that is in touch with his inner-most feelings?

Answer: A self-aware-wolf.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

It’s a question worth asking in these nutty times: how old is too old to trick-or-treat?

On the question-and-answer website Quora, some people ask if the age of 12 is a good time to hang up the ghost costumes.

That sounds about right to me. My mother would have decked me if I’d tried to collect candy in the 9th grade.

Trick-or-treating has long been a rite of passage of childhood — that is, it used to be.

Other people responded to Quora that they see no reason for older people — adults in their 20s and beyond — to canvas their neighborhoods in costumes collecting free candy.

But in the past three decades Halloween has clearly gone from being just a fun-filled childhood event to a serious adult event.

In 2009 I talked with Robert Thompson about Halloween. He’s a pop-culture expert who is the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

He explained that the post-World War II years were the golden age of Halloween for kids but beginning in the 1990s it had been claimed by adults.

Why?

He said then that Halloween had become the one day of the year that adults could really let themselves have fun by dressing up and doing something outrageous that they would never do the rest of the year.

In other words, it became the one day of the year in which adults could blow off stress by mocking the incredible complexity of modern life.

In more recent years, however, the “anything goes” mentality of Halloween for adults has given way to caution about wearing costumes offensive to others or being recorded on video at a party letting yourself go a little too much.

As our hyper-sensitive culture continues to lose its sense of humor — as people are ready to complain or sue at every perceived slight — Halloween is starting to fall victim, as well.

More and more schools and communities are banning Halloween celebrations.

I suppose it makes sense, then, for adults to try to eke out some Halloween fun by trick-or-treating for candy, as well.

When I did it in the ‘70s kids were everywhere working overtime to fill their pillowcases. You hardly saw a parent anywhere.

But now more parents are dressing up as they trick-or-treat with their kids and some even want to get treats for their efforts, apparently.

More college kids are hitting the neighborhoods around their campus to collect free candy — after a raucous happy hour at the pub, no doubt.

Food & Wine offers a tongue-in-cheek set of five commandments for adults who wish to trick-or-treat.

Wear a great costume, the magazine says, but it’s best to chaperone a kid, so you don’t appear like a total weirdo.

Put candy in your pillow case beforehand, so that it’s clear you are looking to collect free confections.

Say “trick or treat” like you mean business.

And if you can’t find a kid, wear a frumpy dress coat and pretend to be two kids — one sitting on the other’s shoulders.

It’s all sound advice, I suppose.

A growing desire for perpetual adolescence among today’s “adults” is revealing itself all over the place.

From delaying moving out of their parents’ homes and delaying marriage and parenthood to dressing like teenagers at age 60, nobody is eager to become a full-fledged grownup these days.

I just hope my neighbors will fill my pillowcase with candy, because I’m “dressing up” as a middle-aged adult.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s
learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist.
Email him at [email protected].

It was one of the most awesome experiences of my childhood.

It happened 50 years ago on an overcast day in Pittsburgh on Sept. 30, 1972.

My Little League team had cheap-seat tickets in right field in Three Rivers Stadium.

My dad and some coaches took us to the game and all of us had one thing on our minds:

Would our hero, Roberto Clemente, get his 3,000th hit that day?

At that time there were only 10 other major league players who had reached that milestone — and we prayed he’d reach it that day.

In the bottom of the fourth inning Clemente crushed a line-drive double and the stadium went wild.

My dad was jumping and shouting as we all were. It wasn’t just a great moment in sports, but a great moment with my dad I will forever cherish.

I don’t follow major league baseball much anymore, in part because my team, the Pirates, haven’t been very good for a very long time.

But I’m following the MLB’s playoffs this year because of one player: New York Yankee superstar Aaron Judge.

Judge recently broke Roger Maris’ American League home run record by hitting 62 in one season.

Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa each hit more than 61 home runs in a season in the late 1990s, but allegations that their slugging power was enhanced by performance-enhancing drugs lead some to conclude that Judge is the true owner of the HR record.

That inside-baseball debate aside, the humbleness Judge displays reminds me of Clemente.

Both Clemente and Judge were blessed with incredible gifts to hit baseballs hard and far and throw them fast and with precision.

Clemente was not boastful in any way about his talents and accomplishments. He thanked God for all he’d been given.

First Things reports that “during the 1972 season, when he was asked if he expected to get his 3,000th hit that year, he said:

“Well, you never know . . . . because God tells you how long you are going to be here, so you never know what can happen tomorrow.”

Clemente would be taken that year on New Year’s Eve in a plane crash off the coast of his native Puerto Rico. He was on his way to deliver relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Clemente was much more than one of the greatest baseball players ever.

He was a great human being who used his fame and influence to “open up clinics, schools, charities and an ambitious sports complex in his native Puerto Rico, to help rescue underprivileged and misdirected youth,” reports First Things.

Today Aaron Judge is also using his fame to give back.

Adopted by his school-teacher parents the day after he was born in Sacramento, he praises his parents for giving him good values and a Christian upbringing.

When he slammed his record-breaking home run, he said it was his honor that God put him in a position to do so.
When asked before the season about his baseball future, Judge gave the New York Post an answer Clemente would have given: “It’s all in God’s hands.”

As for charitable endeavors, Judge also is using his fame and fortune to help underprivileged kids from the community where he grew up have a chance to flourish in life.

And that’s why the Yankees slugger has renewed my interest in baseball. I sure hope he gets to showcase his talents in the 2022 World Series.

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Copyright 2022 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Tom Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].