I Wanna Be Your Dog (Or Cat): 5-7-5 And Gift Certificates!

Whenever there’s a seasonal change (or what passes for a seasonal change in Houston) Hair Balls tends to get a bit wistful. With the holidays approaching and the weather cooling a bit this week, we couldn’t help but turn inward and examine our own soul, even as we try to help the animals at the Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care.

Fortunately, our meditative sojourn only lasted about five minutes, because we stumbled upon a freakin’ Who’s the Boss? marathon on cable, sidled up next to a case of Lone Star and thought about how, from certain angles, Angela looked almost feminine.

However, during commercials, we kept up somewhat with this pensiveness and thumbed through our well-worn copy of collected haikus by the epic poet Basho Matsuo, known affectionately in his time as Matsuo Ball. It made us want to write a few haikus of our own. And guess what — it’s not as easy as Basho made it look…

Jackson A1007959

Stray fox terrier

With low positive heartworm

Don’t be a jerk, though

Brownie A1008203

Cute lab retriever

Owner surrender — “too big”

Biggest douche ever

Lady A1005084

Red pit — heart-shaped nose

Ex-owner moved — good riddance

Lady deserves more

Farrah A1004960

Named after Fawcett?

Best poster ever — what nips!

Anal cancer sucks

Joe A1000780

Can you pass up Joe?

What a perfect freakin’ cat

Don’t make us slap you

Prince A0999908

This prince among cats

Is neutered, like the owner

Who gave him up. Dick!

EXTRA, EXTRA (read all about it): Thanks to an extremely generous donor of the anonymous persuasion, the first six people who adopt any critter featured in this week’s — or any other week’s — Hair Balls will get a $30 PetSmart gift certificate. Unfortunately, they don’t carry beer and smokes, but you can get food and leashes and bones and baths (for the animal, not you).

This offer, which we hope will continue in the future, was made possible in part by our photographer extraordinaire, Robyn Arouty , whose work, by the way, is currently on display at Starbucks at Buffalo Speedway and Westpark (5115 Buffalo Speedway). “Lifesaving 101: Adopt a Shelter Pet” promotes BARC animals. Congrats, Robyn!