GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME

Jun 06, 2011 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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Some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the hydrant.  Then there are days when everything is collapsing around you and it is a total mess or “dog’s breakfast”.  This is different from a “dog’s dinner” which means to be dressed or displayed in an “ostentatiously smart manner”.
In 1933, the phrase made its appearance in the Miami News: “And on a bus stop at a 57th Street traffic halt a youth from the sidewalk called to a young cigarette-smoking lady at the rail: “What you doing sitting there all dressed up like a dog’s dinner?” While animal imagery is generally used to describe perfection (the “cat’s pyjamas” or the “bee’s knees”), the British like to use the term “the dog’s bollocks” to mean the absolute apex of excellence.
Then there is a “dog day afternoon”.  Answers.com says, “The dog days were the days when the Dog Star, Sirius, rose just before sunrise. Ancient Romans believed that the hot days of late summer were caused by the Dog Star, and thought that dogs went mad during this time (also that wine spoiled, people became hysterical, and seas boiled!).
Due to the precession, or movement of the universe, Sirius is no longer seen in the same position from Rome, but the expression has stuck. So a dog day afternoon would be the afternoon of one of the very hot, sticky days at the end of summer.”
This was the kind of dog day Hao Xiaomao was having when he loaded his truck with 520 dogs destined for restaurants in North-Eastern China.  As Hao hurtled down the Beijing highway, a dog-lover in a passing car spotted him and sent out a message which hit the blogosphere.  Within a very short time over 200 animal-lovers were on the highway protesting.
Traffic stopped.  Police came.  According to the Washington Post, “Animal activists, however, kept arriving with reinforcements, carrying water, dog food, even trained veterinarians for a siege that lasted 15 hours…The mob of dog lovers finally won the standoff by pooling together more than $17,000 to pay off the truck driver.”
However, it was still a bit of a dog’s breakfast.  The Post commented that the pet-lovers’ victory was quickly eclipsed when they soon realized they had no idea where to house the hundreds of loud, wild and decidedly not housebroken canines.”
Hao feels that he has been the hydrant.  He claims to have lost more than $3,000 in the deal and since he failed to deliver, nobody wants to have any truck with him.  Worse, he is befuddled about what seems to be much a dog about nothing.  “I still don’t understand what was immoral about my shipment. People also eat cow and sheep. What’s the difference?” he asked.
The difference is that we live in a dog-eat-dog and not a man-eat-dog world.  If you don’t believe me, ask Jack Warner or Sepp Blatter.  In 2002, just before the World Cup in Korea, Sepp Blatter sent a letter urging South Korea to be sensitive to worldwide public opinion about dog meat.  Chung Mong-joon, co-chairman of the South Korean organising committee for the World Cup finals, told Korean reporters, “The recent controversy of the consumption of dog meat is not a FIFA matter.”
At the time, this led me to speculate about the safety of my Trinidadian compatriot, Jack Warner.  I wrote, “This reaction by the Korean official makes me fearful for the safety of our own FIFA vice-president, Austin (Jack) Warner, who will be in Korea for the World Cup. He is well-known for his dogged determination and dog-like support for Mr. Blatter.
“This has placed him in the doghouse of the group now engaged in a dogfight with Blatter and his supporters. Mr. Warner, who is dogmatic in his views, has been the dogsbody of regional football. He  will be sorely missed if Dr. Dogmeat and his cohorts hijack him.
“One can see them jacking up the prices for such a commodity.”

Dr. Dogmeat (Professor Ahn Yong-keun) is a Korean who boasts 350 recipes for cooking dog, some including dogs fed on marijuana or sprinkled with ‘poppy’ seeds which may well be the dog’s bollocks in canine cuisine.
Those who sought to depose Blatter as Alpha-dog or pack leader in 2002, and those who failed miserably to do so in 2011, need to understand the canine culture that dominates and characterises FIFA.  Blatter as “Top Dog” controls the coffers and can make US$1 million or more available to CONCACAF or any other associated federation without any question of accountability.
He can give away, or sell at very low cost, the valuable television rights which can then be resold by the lucky person for big bucks.  This is nothing to sniff at. FIFA is about money and he who controls the purse-strings controls the votes.  The problem with Jack is the same with Jack Russell terriers.
According to the experts, they can be very aggressive with other dogs and more than two should never be kept together.  In fact, they tend to bite off more than they can chew.  They are bred to hunt foxes but sometimes, as in this present case, the fox wins.
Jack has moved from terrier to holy terror in a relatively short time.  Now he has barked up the wrong tree and has a tiger by the tail.  From Blatter’s trouble-shooter and trusted confidante, Jack has become Blatter’s bitterest enemy and is now warning people that Blatter “must be stopped”.
“In nine years Jack has gone from dog’s bollocks to dog’s breakfast.  If Jack’s tale has a moral (as if there is any morality in FIFA) it is, “The dog that licks the boots that kick it will inevitably bite the hand that feeds it.”
*Tony Deyal was last seen saying if you go to a Chinese or Korean restaurant for dinner, don’t ask for a “Doggy” bag.

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