English: Old English Sheep Dog. (From Photo by Bowden Bros.) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I grew up with shaggy dog stories. There are two kinds. One is actually about shaggy dogs. These jokes are long and drawn out and ultimately bizarre and pointless. Another kind has nothing to do with dogs, shaggy or otherwise. They are sometimes long and always pointless. I don’t know why they are lumped together in my mind.

That’s another story.

Classic long, pointless dog-based SDS

A man is in the New York Public Library reading the London Times. He sees an advertisement: “Lost: our shaggy dog. This is the shaggiest dog in the world, and we love her dearly. Her name is Lassie. £50,000 offered to whoever finds our lovely Lassie.”

As he leaves the library he sees the shaggiest dog he’d ever seen. He goes to it. “Lassie?” he asks. The dog runs to him, wagging her tail, overjoyed and almost knocking him down. “This must be the dog.” He thinks. He grabs its collar. It’s got no identification

A teenaged boy walks by. “Wow,” says the boy walking by. “That’s the shaggiest dog I’ve ever seen.” “Yes,” says the man. “Will you hold her for a minute? I have to get something I left in the library. Here’s five bucks.” “Sure,” says the kid. “Man, he really is shaggy!”

The guy runs back into the library, finds the copy of the Times, turns to the ad and writes down the address. He runs back to the street to find a small crowd of people surrounding the kid and the dog. “That’s a really shaggy dog!” says a man. “Yes, says a woman. The shaggiest I’ve ever seen.”

Repeat with lots of other people. He books passage on a ship to England—and at the ticket office, everyone exclaims over the dog’s shagginess. On the boat, likewise. Debarking, likewise. In a cab, likewise. He finally gets to the address that was in the paper.

He rings the bell, the dog hidden behind him. A woman appears. “Yes?” she asks.

“Did you put an ad in the Times about your lost shaggy dog?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says.

“Have you found your dog?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “We have not. We’re quite sad about that, actually.”

“Well, is this your dog?” he asks, producing the dog. The dog wags its tail and goes wild with excitement as it sees the woman.

The woman looks and smiles and reaches down for the dog. “No,” she says. “Our dog was quite, quite shaggy, but not quite as shaggy as this one.”

The shaggy dog contest

A man sees a shaggy dog on the street and discovers that it has no tags.

“This is the shaggiest dog I’ve ever seen,” he says.

He looks up and sees a sign. It says Shaggy Dog contest. Today. 2 PM at the park. Prizes awarded.

I’m going to enter it in the shaggy dog contest, he thinks. And I bet I’ll win.

So he does. There are ten judges.

The first judge says: “That is quite a shaggy dog!”

The second judge says: “I’ve seen a lot of shaggy dogs, but in my years as a judge, this is the shaggiest!”

The third judge says: “I’ve never seen quite so shaggy a dog.”

The fourth judge says: “I think this dog sets a new standard for shagginess.”

And so on…

The tenth judge says: “It’s clear you have the shaggiest dog on display here today.” He consults with the other judges. “We declare you the winner. You really should enter your dog in the county shaggy dog contest, next week.

So he enters it in the county contest.

Oddly, there are ten judges.

The first judge says….

And the tenth judge declares him the winner and recommends the regional shaggy dog contest.

Not surprisingly, there are ten judges for the regional.

The first judge says…

And the tenth declares him the winner and recommends the state shaggy dog contest.

And guess how many judges there are? Yes! Ten. Which he wins. And they recommend the national contest—also with ten judges—with different regional acccents if you can do it.

He wins, of course, and they suggest he enter it in the international contest. It has ten judges—with different accents if you can do it.

And the tenth judge says (British accent makes it better, I think) “Really? I don’t think that this dog is the least bit shaggy.”

A shaggy carrot story

A man comes into a bar with carrots in his ears. The bartender looks at him and decides he’s not going to ask him why he’s got carrots in his ears. He serves him a drink. The man drinks it and leaves.

The next day, he comes in again. The bartender again keeps mum and serves a drink. The man drinks it and leaves.

The next day….(repeat many times, with the bartender having a harder and harder time not asking each time)

The next day the man comes in, and this time he’s got bananas in his ears. The bartender can’t stand it. “Why do you have bananas in your ears?” he asks.

“Oh,” the man says, “they were out of carrots today.”

Another carrot story

A man comes into a different bar than the one in the previous joke;. He has carrots in his ears.

“Why do you have carrots in your ears?” the bartender asks.

“Eh?” the man says.

“Why do you have carrots in your ears?“ the bartender asks, a bit louder

“Come again?” the man says.

(more repetitions, louder each time)

“WHY DO YOU HAVE CARROTS IN YOUR EARS?” the bartender screams.

“SORRY,” the man shouts back. “I CAN’T HEAR A THING YOU’RE SAYING. I’VE GOT CARROTS IN MY EARS.”

Why these are funny, I don’t know. But to some people (my family of origin) they were.

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