I got a doggiemail invitation to a Sonoma area Walk on the Wild Side. I like these events that include us dogs! The bio about the guide for the walk makes me giggle though: She "has cultivated a passion for plants . . . As a child she developed a very personal connection with the yarrow, nettle, and raspberry. [Ouch!] . . . It is her joy to introduce people to the ordinary weedy plants that are always under foot."

I always watch what's under foot. And since my recent back surgery, I watch carefully.

In other reading, I pawed across a wine blog entry titled "Mothers against Cork." Why would mothers be against the little chewy things that my buddy Jack corgi and I like so much? The blog subtitle tells us "Opening Wine Should not be a Chore." Oh howl, that's funny!

I had to show "Mothers against Cork" to dog-ma. She read, then scowled and said, "This was written by Jim Gordon of Wine Enthusiast. Not someone I usually think of as lame. He's a good writer." What got dog-ma's back up is how Gordon referred to his own mother, making her sound like she's got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Gordon said, "[Mom] started trying to use it [the two-handled corkscrew], but she couldn’t manage. Her grip is not as firm as it used to be, and she couldn’t get the screw started with one hand while trying to steady the bottle with the other. When you think about it, this is a very tough job for an elderly person."

We don't want to think about it. I'm a 10-year-old boy doggeh, and I'll bite you if you call me "elderly." Walk on the wild side of bottle opening: Just dig the darn corkscrew in, turn it, and pull.

Gordon's blog entry seems to be just another corked plea to end the use of cork as a wine bottle closure. It hit a little nerve with dog-ma. She went on and on about it. In part, she said, "I'm still not sure what all the anti-cork crowing is about, especially given that other closures are unproven and today's cork suppliers do massive QA and QC to avoid cork taint. . . .

"You can pull a cork out easily if you're shown properly and have the right opening device — not one of those silly two-handled things! A wine bottle's only hard to open when the cork is dried out or welded into place."

Woof? I have more to learn about human behavior. I don't see why you would waste time welding a wine bottle closed or getting tangled up in a raspberry bush.