So, this should be the first of many blogs on the stupid/funny/sad/thought-provoking stuff that happens during my job as an education reporter.

I was doing a story about this school district administrator who went to Los Angeles with her friend and got to be a contestant on The Price is Right. She ended up winning a chandelier and a gi-normous fridge, so I went out to her house to see these prizes.

The woman has this beautiful, sweet dog (I can't remember the dog's name) but it looked like a bigger version of a poodle with less fur, maybe some sort of Spaniel.

So the dog is being all cute and loving, and I reach down to pet her and the woman kind of "eeps" and scurries into the kitchen to get some paper towels. I kind of follow her into the living room, with the dog behind me. As the woman is walking back to the door, I start to pet the dog again, but the dog -- as I'm petting it -- assumes the squat position and pees on the living room rug.

I look to the woman in surprise only to realize that she is cleaning up the pee from the earlier petting that I did not notice. She then politely, although somewhat impatiently, asks me to stop petting her dog. I guess she tends to get excited with visitors, like, pee-yourself excited. Normally when they greet visitors, the woman said she meets them in the lawn; a much more appropriate place for the pee.

Cute dog, though.