Don’t mind us, we’re just practicing for the first annual Pollstar.com Obedience Trials set for this Monday.

You see, it started when one of our coders brought his pit bull into the office. Oh, it was a cute little thing, with razor sharp teeth and an attitude reminiscent of when Don Henley came to our campus to speak out against record company contracts.

The next day our chief of promoter intelligence brought her Doberman pup to the office. Sure, it was a minor distraction, especially when the little fellow piddled all over the schedules for Supersuckers and Peter Green Splinter Group. In fact, our janitor said he hadn’t seen that happen here since GWAR visited us last year.

Soon, all of our employees were bringing their dogs to work. No matter where you looked, the processing pits, the free bar in the commissary, even our olympic size indoor swimming pool had “gone to the dogs,” so to speak.

Of course we were concerned. After all, how can one concentrate on entering dates for Guy Smiley Blues Exchange or Etta James & The Roots Band when all one can hear is the constant yapping and growling whenever our employees brought their canine companions to the office? Plus, the little monsters managed to break into the walk-in cooler and completely devoured our entire filet mignon supply for the next two months. Something had to be done. And fast.

And that’s how the Pollstar.com Obedience Trials were born. Now, along with all the clattering of keyboards as our data entry operators process dates for Randy Newman and The Verve Pipe, our hallways are also filled with the sounds of stern, yet friendly commands. Bring! Sit! Heel!

So, come this Monday, we’re going to have our very first obedience trials. Boy, we can hardly wait. We’re going to leash them all up and then see just how many commands they respond to. It should do wonders for moral. Especially when you consider all of our staffers have been “working like dogs” entering info for Shawn Colvin, Eric Bibb and Alanis Morissette. And in the meantime, we’ll keep working on those commands. Play dead! Lie down! Drop!

Yes we’re really looking forward to the first annual Pollstar.com Obedience Trials. In fact, if Monday goes as well as we think it will, come Tuesday, we’re going to try out this obedience thing on the dogs.