Even though they did not sample Mel Glickman's fictional "Poodle with Noodle" or "Moo Goo Guy Pootch," High Park area residents found his menu for "Authentic Asian Canine Cuisine" so tasteless that they called the police on him earlier this week.

On Wednesday, menus for the Dog Liver Café, owned and operated by Top Dog Chef Hy Park (also fictional), were left on cars parked near the leash-free area at High Park, a shady, sandy retreat full of dog walkers, owners and slobbery canines. The dog lovers took such offence that the police received "numerous" calls.

"It's awful," said Marilitta Lee, who walks dogs for 38 owners. "Every summer there seems to be an incident here. This year we thought we had survived the summer without any incidents, until now."

Last summer dogs were poisoned with antifreeze in High Park, two of them fatally, leaving dog walkers worried about the safety of their charges.

Glickman, a 68-year-old retired architect with a penchant for wordplay and a distaste for Tamil protesters and CUPE, says he meant the menu as nothing but a joke. He is proud of the 50 fake items available at the non-existent Dog Liver Café, crafted with rhyme, alliteration and a slightly dark sense of humour.

"I call this an exercise in creative writing," he said at his home in Bloor West Village yesterday, where a dog calendar hangs on the kitchen cupboard.

"This is really a testing of the water, to see just how anal and uptight Torontonians really are," he said. "And I think I proved my point."

Glickman said his flyers are not meant to be offensive toward Asian people or dog lovers, and certainly not toward dogs. In fact, he loves dogs and would have one of his own if his wife would let him.

But at the same time, he would also try dog meat if he had the chance.

"I'm a joker," Glickman said yesterday, wearing a T-shirt that said, "I'm not insensitive, I just don't give a s---."

"I have what a lot of people think is a good sense of humour," he said. "But not everyone appreciates my humour. The people who took offence and are worried about that are uptight and anal. And you can quote me on that."

Glickman printed 100 flyers and began disturbing them in the neighbourhood earlier this week, he said. By Wednesday he was targeting the larger vehicles parked at High Park, which he thought had a better chance of belonging to dog people.

Glickman said police came to his house later that day.

"Two police cars came," he said. "Not one, two. ... I think they suspected that I was someone who literally poisoned dogs. So they came here ready to capture this guy.

"My wife hid, and refused to answer the door, because she didn't agree with anything I was doing anyway."

The cops left their card and when Glickman called them back he said he received a "stern" talking-to, but no charges were laid.

Police at 11 Division said they told the man behind the menus that some people take offence at what he finds funny, and that they filed an occurrence.

Chris Selke, walking his two miniature Pinschers with his wife yesterday, said he thought the menu could be considered racist. Sue Selke, who teaches ESL, disagreed. "In some Asian cultures they do eat dog," she said. "It's part of their culture."

Dog walker Paul Wehrle, surrounded by a pack of large canines, said the flyers made him uncomfortable. "In the context of other things that have happened in the park, it felt threatening," he said.

Glickman laughs at the idea that anyone could see him as a legitimate threat.

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"What kind of a dog poisoner would do this?" he asked rhetorically. He even put his phone numbers on the flyer, he points out, and says he has received plenty of calls from people who, perhaps with a little help, get the joke.

He says the whole thing has turned into "a tempest in a teacup because of these precious little Toronto types."

And as for the results of his "test" to find out how uptight Torontonians really are, Glickman says, "the proof is in the pudding."