Hot Dogs!

This morning, we finally settled on a long-standing bet. To recap: Dan and Dave picked the San Antonio Spurs to win the NBA Championship, while Mahea and I picked the Cleveland Cavaliers. You’ll recall the Spurs swept the series. And it took this long to figure out what we would do, as the losers. Taking a cue from the world-famous Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest on Coney Island, we tried to eat at least one hot dog from Great Hawaiian Hot Dogs.

Mike “Ramsey” Fujita cooked up the weiners, and I think I won, finishing my hot dog first.

Of course, seemingly on cue, there were two dogs and their owner on the sidewalk behind us, and one of them was a wiener dog. Of course I fed them, and the dogs enjoyed the dogs.

The crew didn’t mind that we only ate one dog each. Fujita stayed afterward to cook up some ‘ono steak hot dogs, which promptly disappeared. The dogs didn’t get those. Oh, yes — one was delivered to Dave Hisaka at the traffic management center a few blocks away, fresh out of the cooker.

The "Re-tern" of Dr. Doogie

Last week, we welcomed back Dr. Douglas Chang, veterinarian at Aloha Animal Hospital, also known as “Doctor Doogie” (I don’t remember who gave him the nickname; it preceded my arrival on the morning newscast). He was a regular guest when the newscast was known as Good Morning Hawaii, and then we had a format and name change.

Well, he returned to the program last week with the Official Bird of the City & County of Honolulu, the white tern. Perhaps not this particular white tern, which is recovering from a wing injury at the animal hospital. The tern was, understandably, not exactly thrilled to be on television, and registered its displeasure by biting Dr. Chang’s finger. It apparently didn’t bite very hard, since the doc didn’t even flinch. Or maybe he’s just used to being bitten by animals.

Animals are always unpredictable (we still have a clip of a goat Dr. Chang brought in that, well, relieved itself, live on the air), and no doubt we’ll have more episodes of such unpredictability on a monthly basis when he comes to visit.

Happiness Is A Warm Puppy Licking Your Face

Photographer Kevin Matsumoto and I were sent to cover the “debut” of four beagle puppies born to one of the dogs in the State Department of Agriculture’s Dog Detector Corps. You may have seen these dogs at the airport, sniffing arriving luggage for unwanted fruits, plants and animals, like snakes.

It’s a puppy pilot project. The state usually has to find a good detector dog, usually from another country. The price tag per dog can run to $1,500 or more. So there was an arrangement made with a local breeder to have one of his male dogs mate with “Nari,” one of the state sniffers.

Three of the two month-old pups (Ko`i, Sparky, and the lone female Daisy) are headed to foster homes, where screened foster parents will raise them for the next two years. They’ll determine whether the little beagles have the right personality and temperament for the job. The fourth pup will go to the breeder for a career as a father. The breeder will get to name him.

And you can’t help but fall in love with them. Another reporter mentioned to me that we could say just about anything in our voice tracks for the stories we’d put together on the puppies; no one would be listening anyway, since the puppies would get all the attention. Ko`i came up to the fence of his enclosure when I approached for a close-up look. The state agriculture inspectors overseeing the puppies said I could pick him up. We seemed to bond, especially when he ended up licking my face on-camera, which I didn’t mind at all.

Call it a cushy assignment, but we get sent to floods, fires, car crashes and the like. It isn’t often we get to do a story like this one. Even Kevin stopped to hold a puppy for a while when he was done shooting video. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to leave, and neither was I.