Dog Strollers?

I am driving to work the other morning when I see a woman running and pushing a high-tech looking jog stroller down the sidewalk. As I stop at the light, I'm thinking fondly of when my own two children were infants and how much that double jogging stroller helped me to shed those post-pregnancy pounds when the woman crosses at the cross-walk in front of my SUV, and I realize that it's not a baby in the stroller, but a dog.

Yes. Dog.

As in canine. As in Iams Dog Food. As in the furry- faced, four-legged fellow who chases the cat. (And at my little horse ranch in the mountains, eats copious amounts of fresh, green, straight-from-the-horse poop at every opportunity with tail-wagging, lip-smacking relish.) As in the words "Pet Go" emblazoned across the cute red canopy. A perfectly healthy looking terrier-type dog is perched in what I now can only surmise to be a dog stroller, pink tongue lolling out, ears pricked forward, looking like he's enjoying the hell out of the ride.

I sit dumfounded and nearly open-mouthed behind the wheel, wondering what is so special about that dog that he has his owner pushing him around in a stroller. Kind of like a king in his litter. Cleopatra on her barge being rowed by slaves. Or, better yet, what's wrong with that dog owner?

That scene from the wonderful kids' book The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings crosses my mind. You know where Penny tricks the dog-crazy Forresters into trading his worthless hound for a gun because he comes riding up onto their front lawn with the dog perched on the front of his saddle, making the Forresters just itch to know what's so special about that dog that he's riding up there with Penny on his horse?