ugliest_dogDog stories, the obsession and life’s work of Arizona Republic Living section editor Scruffy McPoochie (right), are coming fast and furious at the paper.

Our staff of McPoochieologists here at PHXated read the Kibbles from the paper closely.

They are the only hints as to who’s in and who’s out at the secretive, closed society at 2nd and Van Buren.

We’ve noticed more and more non-Living section dog stories.

It’s a clear sign, our analysts think, that underlings are jockeying for advantage in a roiling, uncertain time.

McPoochie may or may not come out as top dog when the turmoil finally ends.

But when it does, one group of folks will be there in canine supplication, offering up their greatest dog stories.

Today, the front page of AZCentral.com links to a story about … a stray dog.

The hed is “Woman spends months trying to save stray dog in Mesa.”

And that’s the tale it tells, at an extraordinary length of 1600 words.

It’s slugged “community,” not “living”—a clear sign another of the paper’s editorial satraps is hitching his or her star to McPoochie’s tail.

The story is written with no little sentimentality by the paper’s Scott Craven.

Read the first grafs and hold back the tears:

It was just one dog.

It roamed a concrete basin south of Mesa’s Fiesta Mall, not far from a two-story parking garage where everyday shoppers likely caught a glance of the stray, scared and dirty, ribs poking through matted fur. Maybe they shook their heads and felt pity before stuffing their bags into their trunks and driving away.

Because it was just one dog.

A few months earlier, it had been two dogs. A large yellow dog ran with the smaller, scrawny one, until a rescue agency was called and took away the yellow dog, which eventually had to be euthanized.

But the smaller dog was too smart, too fast to be taken in. And so the man carrying the long pole with the noose gave up, hopping into his truck and disappearing.

Leaving just the one dog.

You, too, will shake your heads and feel pity, albeit for yourself, long before the story is over.


The complete PHXated Scruffy McPoochie Chronicles are here.

An incomplete catalog of the Arizona Republic’s ongoing experiment in dog journalism is here.