Adopt don’t shop & poem

Post written by Nikki Attree

A lot of my artwork has been about dogs and promoting the message adopt don’t shop. During the pandemic, I produced a cartoon book ´Dog Endz – A collection of wooftastic cartoons´one of the cartoons was based on a true story about Misty, an ex puppy mill dog.

Here are the cartoons….

Here the book trailer for Dog Endz and it’s available to buy on Amazon

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Richard my husband put together this mash-up of canine copy from our dog books to enter in a competition for humorous poetry …

I WOOF, THEREFORE I AM …

You humans think you’re so clever.
You think you invented it all—
the internet, influencers, fake news, trolls…

But we’ve had that stuff for millennia—
our own ways of chewing the cud,
tracking things down,
sniffing things out.

Us dogs had a canine network
when you lot were still living in caves.
We call it the SmellNet—
and it’s the mutt’s nuts.

We came up with You’ve Got SmellMail.
And sociable media—
(SmellBook)
And wi-fi—
(Whiffy)
And…

So, how does that all work? I ask.
He looks at me smug as a bug,
tail like a yo-yo on speed…

Well, every morning I sniff-on
at a lamppost with Whiffy,
and check out my mates in SmellSpace,
post posts on posts,
leave likes, comments, shares—
and nobody takes the piss.

(or I just hang out and chill.)

Then I pick up my smell-mails
and catch up with the woofs on SmellBook...
Who’s bonking who?
Has Hilton, the celebrity Chihuahua, lost any weight?
Are Rambo the Rottweiler and the Pitbull next door
still fighting over the bone they buried
all those years ago?

I nod.
It all sounds depressingly familiar.
Just as he woofed, in fact:
fake news, celebs, bitching, trolls…
But then he goes all philosophical on me.

You humans waste so much time.
All this “To be, or not to be”
What’s that all about?
You’re barking up the wrong tree.
I Woof, therefore I Am
is all you need to know.

We dogs realised a long time ago
that time was more like a small round thing
than a long thin thing.
More like chasing your own tail
than an endless piece of string,
or an infinitely long ladder,
or whatever else you humans think it is.

Us dogs are like Zen Buddhist monks.
We live in the present tense—
not mourning the past, or fearing the future.
We’re dogged. We’re stoic.
We accept what life throws at us—
which is just as well,
considering some of the smelly stuff
that gets thrown our way
and just misses the fan.

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Here´s my Cute Shaggy Dog Design – available on Tote bags, mugs, coasters from my shop on Redbubble and there’s 20% off!

All the best

Nikki

PS: You can follow Fred on Bluesky or X (Twitter) and I’m on Facebook