Jack Bauer and Smokey the horse jump through hoops

My last column about dogs chronicled the gut-wrenching decision last fall to put to sleep our 13-year-old Boston terrier, Fudge.

The upside of losing a dog, I guess, is the knowledge that you can always get another one. I inherited Fudge through marriage, and I have to admit I wasn't champing at the bit to replace him.

But the day my stepdaughter walked in the door with the 6-month-old Bichon Frisee, tail wagging 90 miles an hour, I knew I had little choice. Heck, he was awfully cute.

Not wanting me to feel left out of the decision-making process, though, my family gave me a very important role: Naming the dog.

This was much harder than you might think. After a couple tough days of chewing on this, it came to me that there could be only one name for an 11-pound ball of soft white fluff:

Jack Bauer.

He's been quite a change from Fudge, who was content to sleep a good chunk of the time, was more than happy -- demanding, even -- to lie still and have you pet him. Jack Bauer's friendly, all right, but at high speed: He loves to lick your face, jump on your head, and until we got him fixed a few weeks ago, do obscene things to your leg. He's still working on the house training thing, too. So, the other night, my wife decided it was time to make Jack Bauer jump through some hoops, literally.

She'd hold a doggie treat on the other side of an exercise ring. In fact, she'd start with the thing halfway over Jack's neck. Most of the time he'd just kind of stare at the set-up. But the one time he actually clambered through the hoop to get his treat, Margaret declared the training a success.

What, you may be wondering at this point, does this possibly have to do with life at the Daily Herald? I'll tell you. I was reminded of Jack Bauer's training session as I pitched a story at our afternoon news meeting about Smokey, the horse who paints.

Smokey, a resident at Danada Equestrian Center in Wheaton, bites into a large rubber wedge that holds a brush filled with paint. A trainer directs Smokey toward the canvas, where he actually manages to rid the brush of some paint -- along with bits of apples and carrots used to bribe Smokey into jumping through these artistic hoops.

"Are you sure the trainer doesn't move the canvas, too?" one editor asked. Another, looking at our picture of Smokey's first painting, said, "That picture really tells the story, doesn't it?"

Journalists. What a cynical lot.

Despite all the horsing around, we editors decided Thursday afternoon we had an abundance of more serious news for today's paper, and we should wait for the Saturday editions to unveil Smokey's exploits. Plus, we should have better display space, as we say in the news biz, for bigger action photos of Smokey.

All the better for you to see Smokey's painting and decide for yourselves if it is, indeed, a masterpiece, sure to command top dollar at Danada's May 3 silent auction.