Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world's only daily column that's going to the dogs today because ...

(sound of record needle being scratched across the disc as all the gnarly biker dudes in the bar look up)

Sorry! Some evil dork snuck onto our computer and wrote that horrible old cliche about “going to the dogs” because s/he learned we were going to have a bit of a dog theme going today. If there's one thing we hate, it's a cheesy old cliche like that sneaking onto our page, and we assure you all the person/s responsible have been sacked.

Where were we? Oh, here goes: A Scum Alert! Scum Alert! from “A Very Upset Volunteer” who has this to say:

“To ALL pet owners: Have you not learned that you can't just let your pets roam around here? They make a tasty meal for some predator. I have seen two posters of missing cats, and I am sure you can kiss them goodbye. Not to mention the recent antifreeze poisonings of some dogs. It is NOT safe for domestic animals, and especially not cats ‚ and especially not declawed cats. But this Scum Alert is for someone very deserving of my anger, some woman in Montrose. She knows who she is. I don't know her name, but she threw out a 12-year-old declawed cat, named Pumba, who was subsequently attacked by something. My understanding is ARR paid for her surgery. HOWEVER, at the time, it was not known the cat had suffered nerve damage and her tongue wasn't working and she was literally starving. Down to 4 pounds. Fortunately, one of ARR owners noticed this, took her to the vet, and now the poor thing has a feeding tube! This has really weighed on my heart and I felt I had to try to do something to advocate for this kitty.”

Bad news, for sure. Hopefully justice will be served at some point in the near future.

***

T'other day we asked about people reading Summit Up in other ways than in print or online — like one-a dem “e-readers.” Jonathan Keffer wrote to say:

“I love the paper version of the news. It definitely has the best ‘user interface.' But since I live in Kansas, I am stuck reading the electronic version. The regular web page is okay, but it's nicer to download the PDF's and see all the pages laid out the same way as in the print version. That's particularly true for the guides that get published, like the recent Dillon Ranger District Recreation Guide.

“On the other hand, I'm looking forward to the iPad E-reader version to come out. The website version isn't as nice on the smaller screen, and some other newspaper e-readers I've used have been very nice. A Summit Daily News e-reader will make my life just a little bit better. With the E-readers, you can download the whole paper in just a couple of minutes, and then take it with you ‘off-line' to read at your leisure. It isn't as handy as the paper version, but it's typically faster than the PDF version, and it frees you from your Internet tether.”

Good response, thanks Jonathan! Scott in Breck also wrote to say he'd love an e-reader and/or iPad compatible version of the Summit Daily. Some papers are doing these and charging for them (gasp!). While we have no immediate plans for an e-reader app like this, our web dude says it's being discussed and that, in the meantime, you should be able to download a full PDF of the whole paper from our e-edition online and then read it that way. Also, we will soon have an app ready for users of things like iPhones, Droids and Blackberries, so we'll let y'all know when that's availalable.

In the meantime, enjoy the fish wrapper/campfire starter/bird-cage liner!

We out.