Calling all dogs, By FAYE WHITBECK, Staff Writer

Ranier Centennial Festival to feature ‘dog unit’ in parade celebration

Chairwoman Diane Edens recently notified the Ranier Centennial Festival committee of a concern that people have reportedly been stealing dog tags off Ranier dogs in order to make their dogs eligible for Ranier’s upcoming centennial parade.
In an attempt to thwart this deception, Naomi Woods who is organizing the special “dog unit” for the parade, wants to notify all Borderland dog owners that temporary citizenship will be offered to any area dogs that want to be in the parade.
“The high demand for a spot in the parade is likely due to the hilarious fun involved in the planning and dressing of their pet in great costumes,” said Woods. Rumors of intentions to dress dogs as ballerinas, clowns, even “Super Dog” are coming in, according to the committee. Props are encouraged.
Special themed dogs or those with interesting stories are all welcome, but mostly just ordinary dogs who would love to walk with their owners or children, are needed. But their fashion shouldn’t just be “fur,” Woods added.
Local dogs shouldn’t miss out on the chance and the notoriety to “be a Ranier dog for a day,” says Edens.
The parade will be held Aug. 16 at 1 p.m. through the town of Ranier, where it is hoped that floats, bands, kids, horses, bikes, clowns — and dogs — will abound.
Anyone interested in entering a dog in the Ranier Centennial Parade should contact Naomi Woods at 286-5481; and may also call Mary Ann Kasich at 286-5067 and leave a message to reserve.

An emotional, but valuable read about dogs
The following is taken from the fly cover of Anna Quindlen’s “Good Dog. Stay” a tiny book published by Random House. It is an essay to which anyone who’s loved a dog, can relate.
“The life of a good dog is like the life of a good person, only shorter and more compressed,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen about her beloved black Labrador retriever, Beau.
With her trademark wisdom and humor, Quindlen reflects on how her life has unfolded in tandem with Beau’s, and on the lessons she’s learned by watching him: to roll with the punches, to take things as they come, to measure herself not in terms of the past or the future but of the present, to raise her nose in the air from time to time and, at least metaphorically, holler, “I smell bacon!”
Of the dog that once possessed a catcher’s mitt of a mouth, Quindlen reminisces, “there came a time when a scrap thrown in his direction usually bounced unseen off his head. Yet put a pork roast in the oven, and the guy still breathed as audibly as an obscene caller. The eyes and ears may have gone, but the nose was eternal. And the tail. The tail still wagged, albeit at half-staff. When it stops, I thought more than once, then we’ll know.”
Heartening and bittersweet, “Good Dog. Stay” honors the life of a cherished and loyal friend and offers us a valuable lesson on our four-legged family members: Sometimes an old dog can teach us new tricks.
As well as several fiction and nonfiction books, Quindlen also writes regular columns for Newsweek.