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The other day I met an acquaintance of mine, who is a couch addict at the local psychologist. He was telling me of an Association Test he took there. You know, I give you a word and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Ready? Ham -- eggs, cats -- dogs. Whoa, I said, you mean kids -- dogs. Since dogs and kids are the reason for his visits to the psychologist, he agreed with me. The psychologist, however, disagreed with us both.

Now I may be a bit prejudiced because where I live there are 200 kids and seemingly 600 dogs. Now when you get that many dogs there are some that stand out from others. Prince is as good an example as any. He has the weakest kidneys of any dog I ever knew. If you would aks -sic- the kids they would tell you he also has an extra large distillery with king size condensers and evaporators. If something is vertical to Prince, it gets sprinkled. So when you visit us don't stand too long in one place, nobody does in our neighborhood.

The other day I was taking my leisure on the front porch watching the kids at play. Prince came around the corner of Muldoon's house, sprinkled their forsythia bush, then to Brenner's clothes pole (both of them), and on to the telephone pole. A group of boys had chosen up sides for a game of cowboys and Indians, and they invited Prince to play the part of Rin-Tin-Tin. Prince declined the invitation, let go at the street sign pole at the corner, and, in his firm belief that we were in the midst of a severe drought, went down the street to check and water his other plants.

Since the boys had been snubbed by Prince, they chose Betsy (if you close your eyes the difference between a Betsey and a German Shepherd is not hard to visualize) and the game began in earnest. The renegade Indians were given a head start and soon Betsy and the cowboys were in pursuit. The bulk that was so great an asset to Porky Pavada on the football field turned into a liability at cowboys and Indians for he was first caught. The cowboys marched him back to the telephone pole and proceeded to tie him up with ten yards of some -- mother -- is -- going -- to -- be -- mad -- monday -- morning -- clothesline. You know how kids tie -- they start at the neck and go around. . .and around. . .and. . .around and tie a granie knot at the ankles. Thus was Porky securely tied to the telephone pole.

It was not long after the cowboys had once again gone in pursuit of the Indians that I heard Porky yelling. Thinking that perhaps we was choking, I went to the porch steps, and heard him say, "Prince is coming." Sure enough Prince was coming. He had just stopped at the street sign pole, now the telephone pole, Brenner's clothes pole (both of them), Muldoon's forsythia bush, and on around the house.

A psychologist would say that Porky was emotionally upset, but I would say he was mad as. . .a wet hen. If Porky had not been tied with ten yards of stout clothes line, our dog population would have decreased violently by one. Porky was undeniably saturated from the hips down.

By this time I was helpless as a new-born babe. From previous experience, I had learned that you just don't laugh at the misfortunes of a ten year old boy. I stuffed my necktie in my mouth and retreated to the interior of the house and succumbed to uncontrollable spasms of laughter.

This indignity was the last straw as far as Porky and the boys were concerned. In a body they went to make their protestation to Mrs. Bigelow, Prince's owner. While Mrs. Bigelow was visibly sympathetic and bought the boys' anger with cookies, I somehow felt that the act she was giving was greater than any actress could hope to give. Never the less the boys were heard, and although Mrs. Bigelow made no promises, the boys felt that from then on they would use the honor system rather than rope for securing prisoners.

So, you can see my argument as to why it is dogs and kids rather than dogs and cats. Psychologists are nice people and important to our community, but they had better check their association tests again.