My older brother, Lenny, loved to tell the story of what happened to our cocker spaniel, Inky.

It seems Lenny was using an open bowl of gasoline to wash some parts for the transmission he was repairing. Distracted by a customer, he returned to his project to find Inky drinking the gasoline from the bowl. He yelled at the dog, who took off running. In fact, Inky ran around the house three times before finally falling over.

The neighbors came running over to see what had happened to Inky. "Is he dead?" asked our neighbor Ruth.

"No," Lenny replied. "I think he ran out of gas."