Keep Dr Pocket in mind when you enter the voting booth

I know it is late in the political season, and I have sat on the sideline watching the wheels churn and sputter, but I can no longer keep my yap shut, because I do not see a single candidate anywhere who seems either calm or assertive, I Pocket Dog, am announcing my candidacy for everything.

It doesn't matter if it's the Senate race in Nevada or the Governor's race in Massachusetts. If you can't stand the choice you're left with when you step into the voting booth then write in "Dr Pocket Dog, Citizen of Earth."

I am not expecting to win any of these contests but if I were to win one, or win them all, I will serve each seat I am elected to. Through video conferencing and e-mail I can be a Senator from Delaware, the Governor of New York and the mayor of Wasilla Alaska.

Plus I will not accept any salary for the positions I am elected. I do not need money. I need a ball to chase, Mommy's warm lap, and a snuggly bed to sleep in. Plus those people who pester politicians in lobbies won't be able to influence my vote. I could be persuaded by some lawyer bearing kibble, but there is only so much even I can eat. So while I may be eating out of the palm of their hands, I won't let them persuade my vote because, by the time I get into chambers, I will have forgotten who supplied the tasty treats.

I have heard that some candidates don't know what is in the Constitution. I am not sure what is in the human Constitution. I only know what's in our Constitution. I can sit on Mommy's lap right up to the moment that Foley wants to, then I have to skedadle.

I don't have anything to bad to say about my opponents. I am sure they are all good people. But boy, do they all say bad things about one another on the TV. I don't know why. It's like when Foley and I are looking at a bag of kibble. She's looking at one side where there is a picture of a dog eating, and I'm looking at the other side where the ingredients are listed and we get in a big fight over what's on the bag. We become so rooted in our opinion about what's on the bag that we bark bad blogs about it. But it's only because we haven't got up and looked at what's on the other side of the bag. But us pups are much more curious than humans and we're willing to get up and walk to the other side to see that we are both right. If only humans could get up and look to see things from the other side they would realize it's all the same bag.

Plus I am not afraid to own up to my mistakes. Robert Byrd never admitted to peeing on the floor. I will say I did. And I won't have any problem crossing the aisle. Especially if someone is eating potato chips.

So, when you go into the voting booth on election day, and you look at the list of candidates, and you don't like a whiff of their butts, and no one jumps up to nip at your heels, write in the name Dr. Pocket Dog: Citizen of Earth.

You won't regret it. I promise.

This was paid for by the committee to elect any one else besides the clucks who are actually running to an elected office.

When Daddies don't listen to their dog doctors

There is noting more frustrating to a doctor then when a patient won't follow their instructions. Somehow my Daddy figured out my plans for his operation, perhaps because I blogged them on the Internet, and he chickened out, deciding to go with a human doctor, which completely contradicts Darwin's survival of the species, which states mammals should not operate on their own kind, which is why there are no dog veterinarians.

But Daddy decided to go with a human surgeon and I think he has regretted it ever since. Mommy drove him to the hospital and only almost hit one car. It wasn't her fault, that mail truck should not have been parked there and the mini van was going too fast. Anyway if they had an accident, they were headed for the hospital, which was a whole mile away.

They got him to the hospital and had him sign screw up forms. I would not have had him do this. Screw up forms are what they have you sign in case they screw up. It says that you would be very happy if they screw everything up and you won't say a bad thing about them after they do. Humans are big on screw up forms. Sometimes they even sign them before they get married.

Then they made him change his clothes and put on some cheap little dress with his butt hanging out. They kept asking him when his birthday was. It's all part of their plan to break the human's will. "You're old, you're poorly dressed, we're going to rip you open, and we're probably going to screw it up, sign here."

Then they started sticking pins in his little arm with the accuracy of one armed blind whale harpooners, stabbing over and over until something squirts in the air. I wouldn't have done any of those hurtful things. Just a conk on the head and down to business. Finally the anesthesiologist arrived. Now listen, we are all different kinds of dogs from different places, but we all bark the same. This lady, she spoke in some silly language no one understood. Daddy kept saying yes because holy heck how would he know what he was saying no to.

Then they rolled Daddy away from poor Mommy who was very worried. Gramps was going to be there to wait with her. He's the Worrier King so there isn't much comfort there. I can't believe they rolled Daddy away. I would have hung upside down. But humans have their owns ways. They then moved to a new table, spread out his arms like he was getting a prison tattoo, put a mask on him telling his it was to help him breathe, and told him that he would feel a burning in his arm before he went to sleep.

But Daddy wasn't getting any air through the little mask and he said "Can't breathe" and the anesthesiologist lady said "yes it burns" and he said "not burns, can't breathe," but then he was out.

When Mommy next saw him he was sitting up eating Nilla Wafers. Mommy soon brought him home. First she got a pillow over his stomach and we came down stairs. Foley and I both jumped on him (wise choice, that pillow) and sniffed and neither of us were very happy with their work.

That night Daddy went up to bed where we examined him very thoroughly. We licked just about every spot on his body. We were concerned about his long term prognosis. Daddy had become very fat during his operation. Not fat and jolly like St Nick but fat and mean like St Roseanne. Whenever he tried to lie on the bed it put pressure on his tummy, which pushed pressure on his lunge, and he couldn't breathe.

He went downstairs to try and sleep on the couch. I heard him at 4:00 in the morning. He had tried to get off the couch but fallen, and the hard floor constricted his lungs, and he couldn't breathe, and he was lying going "awk, awk, awk" like a penguin. Foley thought we should go check on him but I said he would be fine, and anyway, this is the only way for humans to learn not to let other humans operate on them.

Mommy helped him in the morning. He sat on the couch and tossed the ball for me but soon he was awking in pain. I wasn't being selfish. I was giving him a stress test. He failed miserably. (I did terrific.) He went from the couch, to a hard chair, to the recliner, to walking, to whining.

Little by little he has got better. He slept in bed Friday night after starting on the couch. By Saturday night Foley and I were doing our lick tests again and he is improving. Just for all humans out there, please, if you feel something is wrong, contact your dog, and if it is an emergency dial rug ruf ruf,.

Paging Dr. Pocket, Dr. Pocket Dog Pocket

Well after a difficult night I think Pocket and I have come upon some good fortune. It started Saturday. We went to the groomers to be made beautiful..(I have no idea why they pay people to make us beautiful. It just happens.) While we were being groomed they went out to eat. They picked us up, we went home, we napped, and then the trouble began.

First Daddy began to play the smelly trumpet out of his butt. Then he began to lollipop and moan. Pocket and I did not pay much attention. We thought it was his regular Saturday night whining. Then, while watching Dr. Who (Spoiler alert: Van Gogh still dies in the end) he was on the floor breathing slowly with his stomach distended like he was about to have a litter and complaining that he had a dozen Matildas romping on his chest.

Mommy wanted to take him to this hospital. Daddy wanted to go to bed. I wanted to go to bed. Pocket wanted to lick her fluffy. By noon the next day it was only Pocket who would be truly satisfied.

Daddy was in bed, and Mommy was nervous. He tried to lay perfectly still like a sultry night. Breathing quite slowly. I sat next to him, licking his face, because I have no self control. Pocket, having recently become a doctor, decided to do some of her own testing, and jumped right on his stomach. Daddy let out a full blooded gawp of pain and swatted Pocket off his tummy which is no way to treat your attending physician.

Pocket went under the sheet to study her notes. I gave Daddy comforting licks then joined her for an under cover consult. Pocket reviewed her notes and said she believed Daddy was suffering from an umbilical hernia. I was quite impressed with the young Doctor. Then again, Daddy had been insisting he was not having a heart attack and had aggravated his umbilical hernia. But Pocket doesn't listen, so it is quite possible she developed this diagnosis on her own.

The lights were shut and Daddy laid there going, "whho-usssh, whoo-ussh" until he stood up and announced he was going to try to sleep downstairs in the recliner. Well this pissed me off. There is nothing I can't stand more then when the humans are getting in and out of bed all night. Daddy went down to the recliner, then on the couch, then upstairs in bed, then down again, then up again, I mean how is a Yorkie supposed to get her beauty sleep?

Then Mommy mumbled that they should go to the hospital and he would mumble no. I mumbled to Pocket if she was sure he wasn't having a heart attack. Pocket mumbled she would check and leaped on to Daddy's chest. That was the last mumbling done that night. Daddy made a noise he had never made before as he tossed Pocket off his chest. He sat up, then doubled over, grimacing in pain. "He is certainly one difficult patient," Pocket said licking her paws.

Daddy still didn't want to go, and he lay snuggled with us, until the daylight crept in the windows, and he got up, hooked up us girls, and took us out for morning business. Oh Sunday morning! Wet dew upon my piggy toes! A fine pee after a restless night. A snippet of treat before breakfast. We huddled like refugees at the bottom of the stairs and Mommy quickly snatched and dropped all her morning items in the bathroom. Then she came downstairs, as beautiful as ever, picked us up, and, hey, wait a minute, turned around and began to carry us back upstairs.

What! You're taking him to the hospital now? After Dr. Pocket made her diagnosis? Putting us upstairs in the sun time? No breakfast? No bacon table scraps? What a gyp! Mommy put Pocket in her crate and me on my blanket and left. "You can disagree with a diagnosis but you can't create modern medicine!" Pocket barked, but they were gone.

At first we were angry, then we slowly became worried, and then frantic, then tired. That was all before Mommy got Daddy in the car and on the road. I slept in the sun for awhile, woke up and smelled the door, asked Dr Pocket her opinion. She told me he would be right back here once the doctor jumped on him and pressed his toe nails in him and Daddy tossed him off his chest.

It took them for half past forever to come home. It was Daddy, walking more upright, not as sweaty, who came to get us for our pee for second breakfast. They sat down to talk. Pocket and I sat to listen. But there were squirrels and kitties outside begging us to bark at then. This is what we learned.,

Like Daddy said he has a hernia in his belly button. He's silly. And he strained it. Or he had a gall bladder attack. Dr. Pocket said this was unlikely since France hasn't attacked anyone for years.

In a couple of weeks Daddy is going to have an ultra nerd....wait......an ultra sound....my notes say ultra nerd to have ultra sound. I'm confused. Then, and this is the exciting part, Daddy is going to have an operation or two.

And this is where Dr Pocket will earn her highlights. We have gone to the Tanner Brigade Store and ordered the Tanner Brigade home aid kit. Once we know what's wrong, we'll wait for Daddy to fall asleep and then slit him open like marine biologists looking for a Yugo in the belly of a shark.

I will be there for two reasons. The first is as a scrub nurse. The second will be as my primary roll as a lawyer. I will represent Mommy after Pocket lets Daddy bleed out on the new sheets.

So, I am looking forward to this summer. This is a blog with legs. It could keep going for weeks. What's wrong with Daddy? Will he have to have an operation? Will Dr. Pocket perform it? Will Mommy be able to stop her? Who will Hattie Mae choose? And what about Wilhomenia?

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