I was torn between post­ing this here or on my (some­what san­i­tized) fam­ily web site, Mason being a mem­ber of the fam­ily and all. But I decided here.

A com­pany is mak­ing a prod­uct to “stop pet gas before it starts.” ((The com­pany was called Cur­Tail, but it appears that they have gone out of busi­ness since this was orig­i­nally posted in 2004.)) They go on to add, “At last an end to those dread­ful moments in your liv­ing room when peo­ple don’t know whether to look at the dog or at each other.”

We have no such prob­lem. Mason’s farts smell like broc­coli. When any of the rest of us fart (or poop, in my infant son’s case) it doesn’t smell remotely like broc­coli. Just the other night, Mason was nes­tled up to Tiffany on the couch, each qui­etly mind­ing their own busi­ness, when Tiffany started to gag. The fart­ing lasted a good half hour, and by the end you might have been able to see a green broc­coli cloud hang­ing over the couch. It really can be quite awful.

Well, now, this com­pany has released a sur­vey of pet own­ers, a sur­vey of which dog breeds are the gassi­est. Poo­dles (of any size, appar­ently) rank sixth. To which I can only say, glad I don’t own a Ger­man Shepherd.

Here’s the list:

1. Ger­man Shepherd
2. Mutt
3. Labrador Retriever
4. Boxer
5. Dober­man Pinscher
6. Poo­dle
7. Cocker Spaniel
8. Rot­tweiler
9. Bea­gle
10. Dal­ma­tion