Avatar of the Week: shawnbowie

Call it Avatar of the Week: The Terrible Things We Do To Our Dogs edition.

First up is mexczar, who is an imperious person who hails from Mexico. Mex describes himself as a "mid-life crisis gay man" to which I say “join the club,” “it’s a phase,” and “you’ll get over it.” Although wrapping your pet beagle up in police tape may be a serious cry for help. Mex, we’re worried about you. Write back and let us know that you and the beagle are all right.

Second up is leewnyc. Lee hails from you guessed it, New York City. He seems to expect his dog to play Xbox with him. But no matter how much fun Halo3 is, I’m thinking pooch would rather be in the great outdoors sniffing other dogs and fire hydrants. Lee and his dog need to get out more

Hey does anyone have a clue what breed of dog this is? I'm thinking miniature greyhound, but he could simply be an adorable mutt. Lee, drop us a line and let us know.

While you're at it you can tell us a bit more about yourself, as all we currently know is that you really like female alternative music artists (Ani DiFranco, Bjork, Amie Mann, The Roches.)

[Update: In the comments below, FieldMedic points out that leewnyc is in fact "Lee" who co-hosts the great Angry Puppy video blogs here on our site. This comes as news to me and did not factor in to my choosing him as an avatar runner up this week. Adding further unfortunate irony to the choice - in a recent video blog Marc & Lee mention that their dog Bender passed away. Guys, if you're reading this, I'm really sorry to hear about Bender.]

This week’s winner is shawnbowie. Don’t know much about Shawn except that he was born in ’58 and prefers to be addressed as Mr. Sister. (Howdy, Sis!)

I love his mellifluous moniker, but his avatar of a wire-haired terrier practicing guitar licks has me a bit concerned. Did the terrier take this up himself or was it sort of foisted upon him - the way my parents made me go out for little league baseball?

Or maybe this isn’t a dog at all and we’re simply looking at a recent picture of Ted Nugent. Hard to tell, but either way it’s disturbing.

So congrats to runners up mexczar & leewnyc, and a special tip of the hat to this week’s winner: shawnbowie