Have you ever tried these contraptions for your dogs? The “Leos” by Canine Genius are tricky magical cookie dispensers designed to evilly toy with the K9 mind, or at least that ballcookieeatscritch space between their ears.

My dogs come to work with me nearly every day, and they sometimes get a bit bored, since I won’t let them answer the phone. So I dug the Leos out of the toy basket and brought them to the office for some doggie distraction.

Mmmm. Genius tastes good.

Woo may not be a genius, but he has a lot of sproing. He at least aspires to genius level.

Tweed is, simply, not a genius.

What?

Of my 3 dogs, only Piper has reached genius level. She can empty her Leo in about .071 seconds. Give her three minutes, and some Mad Teeth ™ …

… and she can empty Mr. Woo’s and Tweed’s Leos as well.

She says there are cookies in here.

Mrfghhh! Come out come out cookie!

Half a second before The Barkscream of Frustration that scared all my coworkers:

Piper really is a genius. She gets her entire lower jaw jammed into the “X” and then waggles the Leo around until all the cookies basically fall onto her conveyor belt of a tongue.

Tweed chases his Leo all over the office with his nose, hoping it will get scared enough to shit cookies.

Mr. Woo comes to me and whines – “remove cookies for Wootie consumption please Food Lady“- and Piper empties his Leo behind his back.

It’s a ton of entertainment. You know, for me.

But Wootie is a genius when it comes to being cute at lunch time.

Are you going to eat that?

I think he’s going to eat that. Bummer.

You’re a genius Piper. High five!

On another topic …

While I think it’s great that all of you nice people love critters great and small, I think it’s kind of less great that some of you assume the worst and feel the need to waggle your morality finger at The Food Lady. Listen folks, MC Hamster is in no danger from my dogs and I’m kinda miffed that anyone would suggest otherwise.

I suppose some of you have not figured this out yet, but a surprising percentage of my photos are – *gasp* – set ups for the purpose of the photo session. Contrary to what some of you might believe, my dogs do not wear hats all the time and/or of their own volition. They do not really see dead people. Mr. Woo’s tail did not actually come with its own name. To whit – “Hamster TV” is a convenient prop for some fun entries, but Hammy is never in any danger. Period. Full stop. End of story.

Hammy’s cage sits on a shelf that is not accessible by dogs; the doors are held extra-securely shut by clips I purchased for that purpose and the cage itself is bungie-corded to the shelf so that it cannot be knocked down by any beast.

When I take photos of the dogs standing on the coffee table staring at Hammy, I put a squeaky ball behind the cage to generate doggie interest for the photo ops. When Hammy is out in his ball, the dogs are in a downstay on the sofa and not allowed to touch the ball, or there is a babygate up. Piper put her paw on the ball ONCE for the purposes of the photo because I asked her “Where’s the ball?”. And my “small animal killing” dog Mr. Woo is the least interested in Hammy of the 3 dogs, because Mr. Woo is kind enough to know that animals that live in our house, like cats and hamsters, are not for consumption. My – ahem – ‘terrified’ hamster has, on his own steam, walked all over my dogs on the sofa and lived to tell the tale.

So please folks, rein it in okay? It kind of takes the magic out of the entries if I have to qualify that I am not an animal-killing sadist every time I make one. I adopted little hammyman because I wanted a pet that would fill up his funny little cheeks with enormous piles of food. I did not get him specifically to torment him, or the dogs.

Except, you know, for the one time I stuck him in the Canine Genius Leo and let the dogs go to town.
Kidding, kidding! Yeesh.