So we have a number of ways of finding out what God wants us to do, and each of us must decide what the answer is in this wonderful country where we are free to believe as we choose, and where there are strict laws against assaulting people just because we don’t like something they wrote.

Today we begin a popular feature wherein we will address the major ethical questions of the day, starting with: Is it OK to eat your dog?

ANSWER: No. Not here in America. Oh, sure, most of us have heard the story about an American who cooked her dog in a microwave oven, but this was not for the purpose of eating it. What happened (according to the story) was this American had one of those little rodent-size dogs whose main purpose in the Great Chain of Life is to pee on people’s ankles, and it got wet in the rain, so the American quite naturally did what any normal person would do if he or she had one lone kernel of candy corn for a brain, namely stick the dog in the microwave oven to dry out, but apparently the oven was on the wrong setting (it should have been set on “Dog”), so the dog ended up getting dried out to the point of Well Done. The story always stops right there, so we don’t know what happened next. We don’t know whether the spouse came home from a hard day at the office and went, “Mmmmmmm! Something smells deeeelicious! I’ll just look inside the microwave here and GAAAACCCCKKKK!!!!”

Of course, this needless tragedy could easily have been prevented via legislation requiring that microwave ovens carry a stern federal message such as

WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT YOU SHOULD NOT PUT A DOG IN THIS OVEN AND TURN IT ON.

On the other hand, this could be one of those stories that everybody tells even though it’s not true, like the one about the teen-aged couple who is parking on a lonely country road and hears on the radio that a homicidal maniac who has a hook instead of a right hand has escaped from the mental institution, so the boy real quick starts the engine and drives right over Reggie Jackson, who was walking his Doberman because it was choking on an alligator from the New York City sewer system. This probably never happened. But it is a fact that my editor, Gene Weingarten, once ate a dog. This was at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing, New York (which incidentally is how alligators got into the sewers), and Gene was at the pavilion of some Third World nation and he ordered a dish with an unusual name, and when he asked the waiter (who spoke little English) what it was, the waiter, in Gene’s words, “made it clear by gestures and going ‘woof woof,’ that it was a dog.” Gene said it wasn’t bad. Not that this is any excuse. I want to stress that I personally have never eaten a dog, and I want to remind those of you who have already stopped reading this column to write violent letters to the editor that it was Gene Weingarten, c/o TroPic magazine, Miami Herald, Miami FL 33101, who ate the dog.

But it is an interesting ethical question, why we get so upset about this. I mean, most of us don’t think twice about eating cows, which are genetically almost exactly the same as dogs in the sense of having four legs and being pretty stupid. Yet if somebody tried to dry a cow out in a microwave oven, we’d all laugh like the dickens—and it would get on “Celebrity Biceps and Boners.” So this is a real puzzle, all right, which is why I am very grateful to Diane Eicher, an alert reader who sent me an article from Nutrition Health Review headlined: “Usefulness Keeps Pets Out of Oven.” I am not making this article up. It concerns Marvin Harris, a University of Florida anthropologist who, according to the article, “studies and tries to make sense of human culture.” (Ha ha!)

Harris is quoted in the article as saying that the reason we didn’t eat dogs, cats, and horses is—get ready—”These animals are just too darned useful for us to eat.”

Now I don’t wish to be critical here, but a statement like that makes you wonder if Professor Harris has not accidentally been studying the culture on the planet Zoog, because the last word I would use to describe household pets here on Earth is “useful.” I have owned a number of household pets, mostly dogs, and the only useful thing I can recall any of them ever doing was the time Germaine tried to bite the Amway representative. Other than that it has been basically a long series of indelible rug stains. And I defy anybody to point to a single instance of, for example, a tropical fish doing anything useful, as in:

ALERT FISH RESCUES WOMAN FROM TRASH COMPACTOR

Yet we don’t eat the tropical fish, do we? No! Not unless we have a very good reason, such as we have been sitting in our doctors’ waiting room for the better part of the day without food or water. Then we might snack on a couple of guppies, but that is as far as it would go. And I don’t even want to talk about cats.

Nevertheless Professor Harris feels pets have many useful functions:

“Modern day household pets can’t match the entertainment value of lions attacking elephants or people in the Roman circus,” he said, “but cats chasing imaginary mice, or dogs retrieving bouncing balls are at least as amusing as the late night movie.”

I think we can all agree that pets are not as entertaining as watching lions attack humans, but I have to wonder how many of you couples out there in our listening audience have ever said to each other: “The heck with Casablanca, let’s watch Beaner retrieve a bouncing ball.” So we indeed have a very complex ethical issue here, but unfortunately we no longer really care.

I have this idea for a new television series. It would be a realistic action show, patterned after the true-life experiences of my dog, Earnest. The name of the show would be “Adventure Dog.”

The theme song would go: Adventure dog, Adventure doooooooggg, Kinda big, kinda strong, Stupid as a log.

Each episode would be about an exciting true adventure that happened to Earnest. For example, here’s the script for an episode entitled: “Adventure Dog Wakes Up and Goes Outside”:

It’s 6:17 A.M. Adventure Dog is sleeping in the hall. Suddenly she hears a sound. Her head snaps up. Somebody is up! Time to swing into action! Adventure Dog races down the hall and, skidding on all four paws, turns into the bathroom, where, to her total shock, she finds: The Master! Whom she has not seen since LAST NIGHT! YAYYYYYY!!

ADVENTURE DOG: Bark!

MASTER: DOWN, dammit!

Now Adventure Dog bounds to the front door, in case the Master is going to take her outside. It is a slim chance. He has only taken her outside for the past 2,637 consecutive mornings. But just in case, Adventure Dog is ready.

ADVENTURE DOG: Bark!

Can it be? Yes! This is unbelievable! The Master is coming to the door! Looks like Adventure Dog is going outside! YAAAYYY!

MASTER: DOWN, dammit!

Now the Master has opened the door approximately one inch. Adventure Dog realizes that, at this rate, it may take the Master a full three-tenths of a second to open the door all the way. This is bad. He needs help. Adventure Dog alertly puts her nose in the crack and applies 600,000 pounds force to the door.

MASTER: HEY! DOOR: WHAM!

And now Adventure Dog is through the door, looking left, looking right, her finely honed senses absorbing every detail of the environment, every nuance and subtlety, looking for ... Holy Smoke! There it is! The YARD! Right in the exact same place it was yesterday! This is turning out to be an UNBELIEVABLE adventure!

ADVENTURE DOG: Bark!

Adventure Dog is vaguely troubled. Some primitive version of a thought is rattling around inside her tiny cranium, like a BB in a tunafish can. For she senses that there is some reason why the Master has let her outside. There is something he wants Adventure Dog to do. But what on Earth could it be? Before Adventure Dog can think Of an answer, she detects ... is this possible? Yes! It’s a SMELL! Yikes! Full Red Alert!