Page 40 - K9 News Digital - Issue 11 May2020
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AND NOT ONE







        MENTION






        OF






        SOCIAL






        DISTANCING…!









        by Mike John





          I was carrying out some research for a book I am  you get distracted and side-tracked, which makes the
        currently working on (actually, to be honest, I have  process take rather longer than you had planned. But
        been ‘currently working on’ this book for quite a while  it’s fun.
        now!) and trawling  through  the Malamute-related      So,  as I  trawled, I  kept coming up against little
        archives I have built up over the past near-40 years,   Malamute-related snippets from the past (to be fair,
        when I was struck with an idea.                       some are only vaguely Malamute-related, but what
          The reason I was trawling the archives on the pretext  the hell. These are strange times!) and I decided to
        of working was that I was, actually trying to clear my  throw a few of them together and share them here.
        head of all the turmoil that the year has brought. And   It’s a bit of fun. Some are funny, some are crazy,
        I was doing this in order to be able to get on with  some are unlikely (though, trust me, true), and some
        some writing and, more importantly, put something  are just interesting.
        together for K9 News, having just ditched the piece    So, here we go. Enjoy.
        I had been working on. I am a bit of a perfectionist
        when  it comes to my writing, and  my own  biggest  THE PURINA ANIMAL HALL OF FAME
        critic. If I don’t like it, then no one gets to see it.  The Purina  Animal Hall of  Fame was instituted
          Anyway, with the world the way it is, and everything  in Canada  in 1968 by the then President, the late
        dominated  by the news and  the weirdness  of how  James MacPherson. Each year,  the Company’s
        things are, I thought I would do something completely  awards committee sift through many cases of animal
        different and  light-hearted,  hopefully  something  to  heroism and select the most outstanding examples
        make you smile.                                       of bravery in saving human life and property.
          The problem with trawling archives is that, a bit like   By 1978  there were  35 animals  thus honoured
        when you are looking for something in a dictionary,  whose brave deeds had saved 100 lives, and four


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