What’s the Word: Dogs turn and the bottom bun is thin
Ever wonder why dogs walk around in a circles before they lie down?
When I was a kid my dad had coon hounds, and we had this one dog who loved to chase his tail, forever sometimes it seemed. But he was a hound and not right bright, until you took him on a hunt, and then he was all business.
I can’t really remember what his name was, but I tend to think it was Old Red or something like that, since a lot of dad’s coon hounds seem to called “Old” and then some reference to their general color. Old Red, Old Blue, etc., so we’ll call him Old Red.
I remember Old Red used to love to play chase. He would chase me, and then I would chase him. But the funny thing was, whenever I was chasing him, he would turn his head around and watch me the whole time, and if we happened to start the chase on the front porch, he would generally go galumphing right off the end of the porch and land in a heap on the lawn, yelping in surprise and pain.
I used to think this was really hilarious, so we started a lot of chases on the porch. Until one summer day we were running around in the woods near my house on our way down to the pond so I could skip a few flat rocks across it, when I looked down right in front of me and saw this huge snake, well, huge to a big-eyed, 12-year-old anyway, and I froze, couldn’t move. Needless to say Old Red was on it in a heartbeat, which was pretty quick considering how fast my heart was beating at this point, and tore it to shreds as I watched, transfixed.
Now, I don’t think the snake was poisonous since Old Red didn’t get bitten, but it was a snake, and I don’t care much for snakes, so Old Red went up a few notches in my estimation that day.
And we didn’t start our chases on the porch much after that.
Anyway, the first time I noticed a dog doing the walking in a circle thing, I figured it was just because dogs had this thing for running around in circles uselessly.
But, being the ever-curious person I am, I decided to find out if there is a legitimate reason for this apparently strange behavior. Turns out there are actually two theories as to why dogs do this.
One purports that before dogs were domesticated and lived in the wild, it was a method of making a bed. They circled to flatten down an area of tall grass or leaves to sleep on, and they still instinctively perform that action today. Another theory is they are marking their territory with their scent by circling the area, basically indicating it is their nest and other animals should keep away. Both theories seem pretty logical to me and I think it’s probably a little bit of both.
Here’s a summer cook-out-related tidbit I picked up from one of David Feldman’s imponderables books. Seems someone asked him to find out why hamburger-bun bottoms are so thin. Everyone has dealt with the disintegrating bun bottom at some time I think. After you slather some mayonnaise, add a juicy tomato, some onion, and then the greasy burger itself, it quickly becomes more than the puny bottom can handle.
He checked with some bakeries and found buns purchased in groceries are one-and-a-quarter inches high. They are baked in molds that are half an inch high, and many bakeries slice the bun at this half-inch mark instead of the true midpoint, hence the thin bottom. But one bun expert, Bill Keogh of American Bakeries, had a practical solution to this dilemma: Turn the bun over.
Hey, it’s this kind of ingenuity that separates us from the other primates.
(Charlie Johnson is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)