Give Me A Break!

I have tremendous respect for real service animals and the training involved in getting them to the level where they can help their humans with necessary tasks. However, I get very ticked off at people who want to believe that their emotional support animal is the same thing. No, it’s not. But we’ve all seen somebody with a little mutt, often untrained and undisciplined, wearing a service animal vest they bought on the internet. Not only is this unethical, in many places it is illegal. Over 30 states have specific laws that classify misrepresenting a pet as a service animal as a misdemeanor. As it should be.

I saw the ultimate nonsense along these lines last week at Walmart, when a customer was riding around in a cart with a rabbit wearing a service animal harness. You tell me, except for being rather tasty when they are deep fried, what service does a rabbit do for somebody? We almost had a Bad Nick episode there.

Alli would never pretend to be a service animal, and I wouldn’t consider trying to pass her off as one. However, if you need a herding ball chased around your backyard, she’s more than happy to take on the job. It was pretty hot during the day yesterday, but it cooled off in the late afternoon, and we went outside for her to get her workout. Fifteen minutes of chasing this thing around, and she’s more than ready to come inside and take a nap.

Now, back to the original subject of this post. Does anybody know where one can get an emotional support bimbo? Asking for a friend. 😊

So what else is going on? I wrote approximately 3,500 words in my next Big Lake book yesterday, and after I polish that chapter up, I will be printing several chapters out for Terry to edit and proofread before sending them on to Judy and Roberta.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for something good to read, check out Melt Down, the 17th book in my friend Ben Rehder’s excellent Blanco County mystery series. Ben is a natural-born storyteller, and if you haven’t tried his books yet, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Speaking of books, be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Muddy Mouth, the fifth book in my friend Carol Ann Newsome’s Lia Anderson Dog Park mystery series. A Fourth of July parade, 89 feral cats, and a missing author aren’t anything Lia and her schnauzer can’t handle. While the dog park gang trains their fur-babies to participate in Northside’s famously eccentric Fourth of July parade, starving artist Lia Anderson is building a float commissioned by Fiber and Snark, the cat-rescuing knitting club managing the career of local best-selling author Lucas Cross. Then Lucas disappears at a book convention, someone attacks Lucas’s accountant, and Lia is the only one the ladies of Fiber and Snark trust to discover the truth while protecting a secret no one suspects they have.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 30 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – No, I will not take the road less traveled. I’ve lived in the South, and I’ve seen Deliverance.