Attn: Dogs, Cats, Parrots, Parakeets, Hamsters, Goldfish, Rabbits, Pot-Bellied Pigs ....

Hello. This is the famous Weekend Gene Pool, which has just been named to the “Most Favored Nations” list of the World Trade Organization. Our mission is to get you to trade your anecdotes and opinions on a subject I propose in return for some meager entertainment. The entertainment today will feature the winning entries in our contest to beg for a free year’s subscription to the Gene Pool.

But first, the question of the day:

What is the smartest and/or dumbest thing you ever saw an animal — any animal — do?

Me, smartest: I once watched my yellow Labrador Retriever, Harry, learn a principle of applied physics, vis a vis spatial orientation and gravitational forces. Here is how I described it in my book “Old Dogs.”

Harry was playing with a water bottle in our backyard. It was one of those small-necked, cylindrical five-gallon plastic jugs from the top of a water cooler. At one point, it rolled down a hill, which surprised and delighted him. He retrieved it, brought it back up, and tried to make it go down again. It wouldn’t. I watched him nudge it around with his nose until he discovered that, for the bottle to roll, its long axis had to be perpendicular to the downward slope of the hill. You could see the understanding dawn on his face. It was Archimedes in his bath, Helen Keller at the water spigot.

That was probably the intellectual achievement of his life, tarnished only slightly be the fact that the spent the net two hours insipidly entranced, rolling that bottle down and hauling it back up. He did not come inside until it grew too dark for him to see.

Me, dumbest. I once had a dog named Augie, who loved my then-four-year-old daughter, Molly. Augie venerated her, which is pretty funny since a four-year-old’s greatest accomplishment involves not defecating in her pants. We had a backyard swing set, which Molly would joyfully swing in as Augie sat worshipfully watching her, absorbing a face-beating every time Molly’s shoes reached the apex of her pendular swing and whapped the dog in the snoot. Augie could not for the life of her figure out how to make this punishment end, such as by moving back a foot.

In a column, Dave Barry once described Augie as the dumbest dog on Earth:

I thought Augie, being a collie, would have at least some intelligence, despite the fact that when my editor and I would walk into his house, Augie would not notice us, sometimes for upwards of a half hour. When she finally did notice us, talking and drinking beer, she would bark as though the Manson gang had just burst in, so my editor would have to go over and sort of say, "Look! It's me! The person you have lived with for 10 years!" This would cause Augie's lone functioning brain cell to gradually quiet down and go back to sleep.

But I still thought she was roughly on a par with my dog, Shawna, IQ-wise, until the night -- you may remember that night; it was the longest one we ever had -- that I slept on my editor's couch in his living room, which is also where Augie sleeps. Only she doesn't sleep. What she does is, first, she lies down. Then she scratches herself. Then she engages in loud personal hygiene. Then she thinks, "Maybe I can go out!" and she walks across the floor, which is made of a special kind of very hard wood so that when a dog walks on it, it goes TICK TICK TICK TICK at exactly the volume you would use to get maximum benefit from the Chinese Ticking Torture. When Augie gets to the front door, which is of course closed -- it is always closed at night; even the domestic insects have learned this by now -- she bumps into it with her head. Then she backs up and bumps into it with her head a couple more times, in case there has been some mistake. Then she senses, somehow, that there is a person sleeping on the couch, and she has the most innovative idea she has ever thought of, which is: "Maybe he will let me out!"

So she walks over to me and noses me in the face, using the same nose she uses for hygiene, and I say, "Dammit, Augie! Go to sleep!" So she lies down for one minute, which is how long it takes for her brain cell to forget everything that has ever happened to her since she was born. And then she starts again: SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SLURP SLURP SLURP (think) TICK TICK TICK TICK BUMP (think) BUMP (think) BUMP (think) TICK TICK TICK TICK NOSE "DAMMIT, AUGIE! GO TO SLEEP!" TICK TICK TICK TICK (pause) SCRATCH. . . .

So, that is your challenge, this week. Remarkably smart or remarkably dumb things you have seen an animal do. I will publish them, and respond to them, next week. Send your stories, observations here:

Now, the entertainment. A week ago, in this space, The Gene Pool issued a challenge based on the generosity of an anonymous benefactor whom we called John Beresford Tipton due to ancient, complex reasons related to the 1950s TV show “The Millionaire.” The challenge arose because our mysterious donor had offered to give away, as gifts, four one-year subscriptions to this newsletter (worth $50 apiece), to be chosen by me via a contest. The contest was to beg for the prize in a compelling way. No other rules.

We got a lot of beggars, so choosing was not easy. In the end, I had five, not four, winners, and could not decide which to winnow out, so I gave the five to Rachel, who read them, loved them, and refused to amputate any one of them. She offered to gift the fifth herself. And so shall it be.

Here are the five:

The Felon, from Roy Ashley, already a paid subscriber, who is gifting a friend:

“I am in a minimum security Federal prison. The food is okay, and there are guards who can supply contraband, at a price. We get steak at least twice a week, and are offered white wine. I would sell the subscription at a discount, and use the money to buy some red wine, maybe merlot, to have with my steak. I promise to share the wine with some of the less fortunate inmates, and not waste the money on expensive French reds.”

The Poor Wretch, from Jackie Toth:

To Whom It May or May Not Concern: I write thee humbly, without design or serif, to make a request known for a one-year subscription to The Gene Pool. I shall lay down my misfortunes here only insofar as you might understand the gravity of my situation. Develop in your mind’s eye a worn, sepia-tinged stereopticon card of my face and body. The eyes are sunken from the casual malnutrition befitting an orphan, the shoulders are bare yet clearly carry the daily burdens that an unfair world decides to discard, and the legs are enfeebled by this, my third bout of polio. I am writing to you from Little Nook, what I call the boy-sized hole in the alley between the two workhouses on Pilferton Street. Here it is winter, it is always winter. I cannot get warm in my loose-fitting shirt and delicate summer boating shoes. But my heart flitted when I saw, posted upon the street lamp like a gleaming beacon, an advertisement of your and Sir Tipton’s kind offer. I am a simple boy and do not grasp the gravity of the repetition of references to the “orange button,” but I hope you might spend one delicate and pensive inhalation in consideration of me for a subscription. The diversion from my low circumstances that I understand such a subscription would beget would bring me more joy than I have known in my eleven years. God bless you for your generosity, and god bless you for your time and attention to a person in my position (scrunched up in the dark solitude of Little Nook). My final candle is at the last of its wax, so regrettably I must end here, with humility.”

The Beleaguered Sister, from Mandy Worley, on behalf of another person:

“Please give my sister a subscription. She reads your column and we have great fun talking over submitted questions and Invitational entries. But she doesn’t have a subscription so can’t enter her ideas. She sends her barely-baked ideas for me to submit. For the recent Muldoon contest, she sent me “Ulna and uvula are funny. Do something with that.” Please grant her a subscription and save my mind.”

The Poor Wretch II, from an entrant who wishes to remain anonymous here. It was a very long, evidently true story which I will here summarize:

The writer said he would pay for a subscription himself, but is kinda low on funds since a divorce. The divorce occurred recently, decades after he had blurted out something meant to be a philosophical question, not a proposal: “Do you want to get married?” and when the lady joyfully said “YES,” he says now, “I knew I could not explain that I was just wondering.” The couple had a laugh over it when he disclosed it to her years later. Many, many years after that, long after a wedding attended by beaucoup friends and family, and after two children had grown and gone off to college, the soon-to-be ex-wife managed to get the marriage annulled by the Roman Catholic Church, on the grounds of that inadvertent proposal. The ruling somehow managed to stipulate that the children were not illegitimate. This ruling cost $5,000.

And finally, from a beggar who must remain anonymous for the moment:

“While watching The Millionaire in my early youth (I used to love that show), I never heard the name of the ‘fabulously wealthy billionaire' as John Beresford Tipton. It was only many years later that I learned the correct spelling and pronunciation of the name. For the longest time, I was charmed by the antics of that well-known fella, John "Bears" Fatipton. Listen to the narrator introduce the show, with that in mind, and you'll hear it too. As for the free Gene Pool subscription, if I win, and as I am a paid subscriber, I hereby designate the gift to my friend, Barbara. Barbara recently lost her husband, Mickey, who was a Pearl Harbor survivor and made it to the ripe old age of 102. He was still driving (and was a good driver) at that age.

That’s from Don Weingarten, my older brother (Rachel was not given the names when she judged.) Don and I used to watch The Millionaire together in our living room in the Bronx, on a small-screen black and white TV housed in a wooden cabinet the size of a refrigerator.

If you find any ethical problems in my awarding this prize to my brother, a prize that will be passed on to the recent widow of a 102-year-old Pearl Harbor survivor, please write to me and I will answer each complaint personally, in longhand, on parchment, with an antique, feather-quill pen. Send your complaint by snail mail to: Gene Weingarten, Complaints Department, New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, N.Y, 10018.

Again, your stories and observations about smart and dumb animals:

Also, please check your pockets. Do you have $4.15 a month to keep this sort of stuff coming? If so:

And, finally, a naked test to see who’s still reading this.