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Thursday, October 29, 2026Oct 29

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Kennedy: The power of the pout

View other columns by Mark Kennedy

Never underestimate the power of the pout.

Even our dog, Boise, a 4-year-old poodle-spaniel mix, adheres to the adage: “The pouty pooch gets the pretzel.”

OK, I totally made that up. But it’s true.

As we get more sophisticated, we refer to this pouting as passive-aggressive behavior.

Boise is the prince of pout, the wizard of whine. He whines to go outside to do his business. He whines when his food bowl needs refilling. He whines when one of us is sleeping past our 5:45 a.m. weekday wake-up time.