Pocket and the Lost Tags

Saturday night Mommy’s brother and his wife were over.  River Song and I like when we have visitors because that means more attention for us.  Sometimes it is nice to get some other folks scratching and petting. By now I know all my parents’ moves, and I am ready for some strange.

I was lying on Mommy’s right side, and River was on her left.  I stood up to go visit Uncle Tom when Mommy looked down and saw my tags were no longer attached to my harness.  She asked my Dad where the tags were and he didn’t know either. I didn’t care. I was getting a fresh hand on me.  My tags were the least of my concerns.

My parents continued to discuss the missing identifications.  They accused me of losing them, which made me angry because the tags are clipped to my harness and rest on my back.  If they did slip off me, my paws are not equipped to stop them from falling to the ground. I was an innocent tag loser.

They began to argue right in front of their guests, who didn’t give a besotted cuss about my tags and were hoping to have more stimulating Saturday night conversations than the musings of two people about the limited travel of a tiny dog.

Mommy was sure the tags were on me that morning because she is always rubbing me and would have noticed they were gone.  Daddy was sure I had them on when we went to the groomers on Wednesday. He would have seen them missing when he took off my vest before handing me over.

When I was brought home from the groomer, I once again escaped my travel bag and made my way to the front seat.  Daddy, thinking that is when I lost the tags, left his guests to check the car and the bag, even though Mommy insisted that I had been wearing my tags the previous day.  After this fruitless endeavor, my parents realized their guests were staring at their phones trying to find something interesting to occupy their time. To try and save the night Daddy dug out the Gay family geology to tell them about his great great great great great Aunt Jemima Gay.  She was the daughter of Timothy Gay and his wife Submit Gay. Great great great great great great grandmother Submit’s maiden name was Blackman. Coincidentally Submit Blackman and Submit Gay were the founding principles of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.

Back to my tags.  My parents decided they must have magically popped off of my harness during my walk.  After our guests were on their way home, talking how the only good thing about their dreadful evening was us dogs, Daddy took us outside where he saw the stroller we use to oversee the garden work on Mondays.  He checked inside and found my tags.

I am happy they were found but also incensed that they pay so little attention to me that they did not notice my tags were missing for five days.  First my tags then me. On some random Saturday night, a guest is going to ask about me, and my parents will realize I have been sitting in the stroller for five nights!  Or one of them is going to at me and say “Oh, Pocket’s missing an eye, I wonder when that happened?”

I need to make sure they are paying more attention to me, and there is only one way to do that.  My Mommy has been complaining about my barking, and I was going to stop, but now I must redouble my efforts.  


When I bark, I get attention and I need more of that.