The Slice: Dog days of summer

Let’s celebrate hot dog season.

Several readers answered The Slice’s call for snapshots of canines in wading pools. Here’s a sampling.

University High School student Beth Ross sent photos of her yellow Lab, Charlie, in his personal pool positioned next to the family’s big one. “We don’t let him get into the real pool,” wrote Ross. “He can only dream.”

Diana Lawson said her boxer, Hazel, is going through a hormonal change of life and uses her pool to help cope with hot flashes. “And the pool is hers, not to be shared with her younger, male sibling,” wrote Lawson.

Sandy O’Connor’s dog, Cocoa Jo, was spending so much time in the horses’ water trough that the family wound up filling a separate stock tank just for her. “Over the past week, she’s emptied about a third of the water out – getting in, getting out, shaking all over everyone and doing it all again,” wrote O’Connor.

“Slice answers: “What it took to get rid of 12 pairs of jeans (all colors) after about 10 to 12 years was finally accepting the fact that I was never going to get rid of the 20 pounds to fit in them,” wrote Carol Stephens.

Walt Jakubowski wrote, “When my wife refuses to patch them anymore, and they have gotten sufficiently threadbare so that normally private parts of my body are open to public view, then it is time to discard the old jeans.”

“You don’t have to possess a dirty mind to know when something just doesn’t sound right: A press release outlining a vacation Bible school program included this sentence: “The theme is Western Ho for Jesus.”

“No, thanks: Victoria Mantello regularly receives e-mails from the Williams-Sonoma chain of specialty stores. The subject line on one recent note struck her as less than appetizing: “Butterflies, Bees, and Ladybugs – Summer baking fun.”

(It turned out that it was about colorful insect-shaped treats you could cook up for kids. Still.)

“High praise in Liberty Lake: A friend’s little boy informed her that he liked her so much he would never sell her on e-Bay.

That’s nice. But if that relationship sours, I wonder how he’ll word the listing. “Gently used mom….”

“Thanks: To the readers who submitted lyrics for “Viva Washtucna.” For several reasons, I’ve concluded that this doesn’t really work in print. So let’s move on.

“Today’s Slice question: When exactly did it become more or less standard for little kids to have 16 trillion toys?