I've decided I need a dog. A large dog. I don't want some little yapdog that's going to turn into a flying furball every time there's a knock at the door. I want a dog that, should I need emergency transportation, I could throw a saddle on and ride.

I live in a smallish apartment, so for the time being my canine acquisition wishes will have to go unfulfilled. I once lived with a woman in a one-bedroom apartment that was populated by two German shepherds and six cats. That was 12 years ago, and I'm STILL getting the fur out of my clothes.

Why the urge to join the dog-owning public? It's very simple. I am occasionally prone to acts of consummate stupidity, and I need in my house a creature that will, no matter how idiotic my actions, always regard me as a genius. My wife used to do that, but I made the mistake of letting her see me turn a lightbulb the wrong way until it snapped off in my hand, then try very hard to electrocute myself getting the broken piece out with a fork.

You see, dogs are great, but most of them aren't exactly Rhodes scholar material. Take my childhood dog, for example. She was a collie that, due to my mother's desire for a show dog, was saddled with the ungainly name of Spring Fancy Wilson. We had a piece of official-looking paper that said so.

We actually DID try to show Spring, but it didn't work out. My dog was, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb as toast. When presented with the ramps and tunnels comprising the obedience portion of the show, she would either try to hide behind my dad or investigate to see if they were edible. Neither behavior scored a lot of points with the judges.

Now, before you frothing collie owners start deluging me with mail, let me say that I'm sure Spring's cerebral malfunctions were a result of her enviroment, not the fact that she had that narrow collie skull with only enough space for a vestigial brain.

You see, like any dog, Spring had a few favorite games, all of which, of course, involved food. In one, we would put a Milk-Bone in the toe of a sneaker, and she would go nuts trying to dislodge the crunchy treat. Once, I mistakenly used one of my older brother's gym sneakers, and I think the smell damaged her brain. She just wasn't quite the same after that.

And now, while I sit back and dream about herds of Irish wolfhounds stampeding back and forth across the back yard, check out this week's sampling of canine and human idiocies.

Horse's Best Friend?

Officer Steven Courville, of the Providence, R.I., police department, was making a routine mounted patrol one weekend recently when he encountered a threat from an unexpected quarter.

An aggressive pit bull apparently decided that the town wasn't big enough to allow for him and the officer's horse, Arlen, and decided to address the problem directly. The dog charged the horse, and Courville reacted quickly, dousing the canine with a dose of pepper spray. He may as well have been spraying Eau de Sirloin. The dog was completely undeterred.

After a short chase, during which the enraged dog continued to bite at the police steed's legs, Courville was forced to shoot the attacker, killing it.

This is a convincing argument for dogs large enough to ride. What's the pit bull going to do when confronted with an Irish wolfhound 17 hands tall? The confusion factor alone should neutralize most problems.

Discriminating Dogs?

Alert reader Steve Luccioni sent in the story of Dolpho, a 5-year-old German shepherd that is the lone police dog in McKees Rocks, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh. During a recent incident, his handler was wrestling with a drug suspect when the door to the K-9 unit inadvertently opened. Confused by the chaos, Dolpho mistakenly bit a 9-year-old African-American boy who was nearby.

Borough Councilwoman Wanda Jones Dixon, claiming that Dolpho intentionally targeted the boy due to his race, accused the dog of racial profiling. She said she'd received complaints from other people who had been attacked by Dolpho because of their race.

I'm not sure if I believe the councilwoman, but I'd be willing to pay big bucks to anyone who could train a dog to specifically target, say, boring people. Think how much easier that would make backyard parties! "Hey, Scott, have I told you about my days in accounting school? YAAAARGH! NO! NO! Get it off me!" *CHOMP* *SNARL*

If Everyone Else Did It ...

David Kight (pictured, left) gave Omaha, Neb., police officers something to talk about after they rescued him from the Missouri River recently.

Witnesses claimed that they had seen Kight jump from an interstate bridge into the rushing river, and he didn't deny it when questioned. He told a TV crew that he'd done it "because I wanted to. Because it was a fun thing to do."

Keep this story away from your kids. This is the sort of thing that could neutralize that old parental argument referred to in the subhead above. If there's anything we as parents can't afford to lose, it's our tried and true responses to bizarre childhood queries. Where would we be without "Your face will stick that way," and "Starving children in (insert country here) would eat those Brussels sprouts?" Save yourself the trouble.

Urban Legend Of The Week

Have you heard? Bill Gates is sharing his fortune! Even more startling: AOL and Microsoft have merged! It must be true ... this chain letter in my inbox says so!

This one is serious proof that chain letters are the zombies of the Information Age. This thing has popped to life repeatedly over the last three or four years, and despite statements from both Microsoft and AOL, continues to fool great portions of the public.

According to the most outlandish version I've seen, Microsoft will pay you $245 for each person you forward the message to, then a sliding scale for subsequent forwards of your original message. It doesn't take a financial whiz to figure out that even Nerdy Bill would be drained dry fairly quickly by such a scheme. He does give millions to charity, but not this way.

Information on this and hundreds of other e-mail hoaxes and urban legends can be found at the About.com Urban Legends site, run by my good pal David Emery.

ATTENTION! This is your last chance to send me your bizarre and super-fattening recipes, and your off-the-wall intepretations of the classic peanut butter sandwich. The most choice concoctions will be featured in my next column, coming in two weeks. Send me those recipes, comments, screeds, diatribes or anything else.

Previous Stories:

• June 21, 2002: Orange You Glad?
• May 31, 2002: Dollars And Nonsense
• May 24, 2002: Beware The Food Police
• May 17, 2002: Don't 'Bee' Cruel
• May 10, 2002: The Weird Road Trip
• May 3, 2002: The Wild, Wild Web
• April 26, 2002: The Weird Is In Here
• April 19, 2002: The Weird Mating Game
• April 12, 2002: What's Wrong With The Food?