My meeting with the Governor does not go exactly as planned

Well, friends, today did not go as well as I had hoped. I had a 10:00 meeting with Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. There is a debate going on as to whether the law should be changed to allow the Governor to either appoint a temporary, or permanent, replacement for Senator Kennedy’s seat, or whether there should be a special election. I favor a special election because I think my combination of level headed thinking and overpowering cuteness will carry the ticket. But, to be safe, I had scheduled a meeting with him so he would at least consider appointing me.

I do not believe that Governor Patrick will turn this into the circus that Governor Rod Blagojevich did. Governor Patrick is black and the only African-American who could pull off Blagojevich’s hairstyle was James Brown.



But, while I may be just shy of two, I am wise, and know the Governor will expect something for the appointment, which is why I am fully prepared to hump his wrist.
Last night Foley stayed up late giving me humping lessons: “Too much thrust, not enough wiggling, shake your money maker like you mean it,” that sort of thing. So that I could have someone to practice on we mixed in Ambien with Daddy’s lemonade and by 7:30 he was a compliant as Lindsay Lohan at a Redrock Music Festival. Foley spent a lot of time teaching me on our insensate Daddy except when she was barking at the TV screen over the stupid deal Jeff made on Big Brother. (Foley loves some Big Brother.)

I got to Beacon Hill an hour early for my 10:00 meeting. There were many sharply dressed men smelling like too much body wash and mouuse, with very shiny shoes that I so wanted to sniff and lick but Foley counseled me to, until the moment I got the appointment, be more man than dog, so I fought the urge.

The only non human I saw who concerned me was a fluffy white cat named Snowball sitting by the air conditioner who told me that she came from an affluent family in Arlington who lived in a house that sat on ten acres and expected to be named Senator if the Governor decided to go with a non human. I was immediately frightened knowing if the Governor had one weakness it was a white feline with a big back yard.

I was now very nervous, and the Governor had been generous in putting out several Dr. Peppers and I began to drink them one after another and you know what that leads to. I couldn’t leave because I didn’t want to miss my appointment. Plus I was loving the Dr, Peppers, so I kept drinking them. Then I was called into the Governor’s Office.
Oh the Dr. Pepper had backed up and each step I had to fully concentrate on not soiling his blue rug. He motioned for me to jump up on a chair and when I did my tummy swayed like a soda fountain on a Bering Sea crab ship. He asked me what I had to offer as Senator but all I was thinking was “Don’t pee, don’t pee, don’t pee, don’t pee.”

“Don’t pee!” I said,

“Don’t p?” The Governor asked. “Don’t p? Oh, I get it, don’t p, it’s slang for don’t play. I like that, it’s hip, it’s urban. Support Pocket: She don’t p. I think that could be a slogan we could work with. Certainly would make me look like my own man. Pocket don’t p! I like it.”

Every time he said pee I thought I would burst. I just wanted to get out of the room and find a nice couch I could pee behind. The Governor extended his hand and told me he thought I could do a lot for Massachusetts.

Then I humped him. I was so backed up the pee was blocking my ears. I couldn’t hear him. I just saw the arm and reacted.

I humped once, twice, three times.

And then I peed on his arm.

And he looked like this.


I apologized. A lot. But I don’t think it did any good. As he was showing me out he told me that he was probably just going to name a Kennedy anyway.

I was sad as I climbed down the marble stairs but when I got to the bottom I had a new idea. If he wanted a Kennedy he could have a Kennedy.

So introducing Pocket Kennedy.


The Kennedy’s have had the people of Massachusetts in their pockets for years, it’s about time a Pocket had a Kennedy.

I live near Cape Cod, I drink too much, I’ve never done an honest days work, now I hump everything I see. I am a Kennedy.

Pocket Kennedy.

For Massachusetts Senate.

Pass it on.

Pocket announces that she is a candidate for US Senate

I have come here today, to announce that I am officially a candidate for the seat of United States Senator from the Commonwealth Of Massachusetts.

Some of you may feel that too little time has passed since our beloved Senator Kennedy’s death to announce my candidacy, I would say to them to remember, I am a dog and for every one day you age, I age seven, so to me, the Senator has been dead weeks.

Others say to me “Pocket: Why set your sights so high? Why not run for the House of Representative first?” The answer is simple. I am not housebroken.

As was done almost 50 years ago it is time to pass the torch to a new generation, a generation born in this century, this decade, the past couple of years actually, and a new species, because let’s face it, dogs could not possibly do a worse job than humans.

I vow on this day that the only tail I will chase in Washington is my own, when Senators go out for the night for a little tail it will be to meet with me, that the days of one butt sniffs the other politics are over.

I am ready to take a position on the most important issues of the day. I say neither Rowe nor Wade but paddle. I am for Universal Health Care because Mommy’s granddaughters tell me when they go to the Doctor’s they get a lollipop and I am for free lollipops for everyone. Also I am supporting free veterinary care for all because dammit we deserve it.

Jon must immediately return to Kate. You have a litter with a bitch, and the bitch’s Mommy doesn’t sell the litter, the stud doesn’t get to wander off. And stop wearing those stupid shirts. When they get blocked out I think I’m having a stroke.

Also, it will now be law that all female dogs are referred to as “lollipops,” while that other word is reserved for mean women who don’t treat pups properly.

Cesar Milan will be deported back to Mexico: All that “humans being pack leaders”
nonsense needs to cease and desist. Chief Glynn Johnson will become pooper-scooper to the entire Los Angeles area cleaning up after every dog. Michael Vick can do the same in Philadelphia. We will pass legislation to appoint someone to go to Tennessee and explain to Billy Ray Cyrus that having his daughter working a stripper pole on television is neither entertaining nor good parenting, and for heaven sakes enough with the hair cut and soul patch. We need to get Michael Jackson buried or hand him off to science.

And free Auntie Bev!

I have listened to my constituents and there will be free ice cream for all dogs with a $10.00 fill up. Veterinarians will be required to measure a dog’s temperature by placing a device under their leg pit. The doctor shouldn’t be determining my body temperature the same way Dick Cheney instructed agents to determine if there was a bomb on a passenger at LAX. Fireworks will be forever banned.

I know that there is a long road ahead of us. Many of you, initially, will not take my candidacy seriously. It would be a great leap of faith for you to support my candidacy. But what is a dog but loyal, compassionate, your best friend? And is that not what we need in Washington?

There will be no sexual scandals during my term, unless you consider a candidate licking herself a scandal. I will walk across the aisle to work on getting legislation passed, but if my colleagues do not work together then I will follow in the steps of the great Daniel Webster and leave a steaming load of Vick in their desk.

Do not dismiss me lightly. I may be small, but I am mighty. I may not be house-trained, but I am love-trained. Join me and we will bring some old fashion dog sense. If you support me please go to my blog page and list yourself as a follower.

Yes we can. Change is coming. It’s my diaper. I spent so much time working on this I think I peed.

So change is definitely coming.

Thank you.

Tuesdays with Bev

Daddy is always late coming home on Tuesdays. We don’t like when he’s late. Pocket sits on the couch, looking out the window, waiting. I sleep on Mommy’s lap, but I sleep tensely.

But we’re not angry, because Tuesday is the afternoon that Daddy spends with his Auntie Bev, and if it wasn’t for Auntie Bev none of us would exist.

You see Mommy, believe it or not, had one rule when she married Daddy. OK, two rules, one is she wouldn’t do that, and two was no dogs.

That’s right my Mommy was an anti-dogtite. Daddy knew if the puppy window ever opened he would have to jump through it quickly. And it did open, out of nowhere, one day at the mall.

The seeds had been planted years before Mommy and Daddy were even married when this little Shih Tzu jumped out of a car near where Mommy was living, ran into the woods, and ended up in her driveway, jumping in her lap as soon as she opened her car door. Mommy called Daddy and they went to the police station and the animal control officer with a description of the pup but a couple of days passed and there was no word. Meanwhile the little baby had nestled right into her heart, which broke into two pieces when the baby’s owner called, one side for the joy she saw when the family found their Precious, and the other side for seeing it disappear from her life forever.

It must have been with that little Precious in mind when, one day, she looked in a puppy store window, saw a little baby like the one who had nestled in her lap and said that she wouldn’t mind a puffy little dog like that.

Daddy knew this was it. He had one chance. Auntie Bev. She owned a puffy little dog named Tillie and my Daddy thought if Tillie and Mommy could bond then maybe he could convince her to get a dog.

They stopped at my Auntie Bev’s and Uncle Bob’s house, and, unfortunately found that Tillie had recently gone to the Bridge. But Auntie Bev, who Mom respected very much, told her how wonderful Tillie was and how much she meant to them and she slowly kept working on Mommy until she gave in and agreed to think about getting a puppy,

Less than 24 hours later Daddy had Mommy at a house in Dartmouth where little puppy Blake went running over to her and jumped in her arms and Mommy hasn’t been dogless for a day since.

Auntie Bev and Uncle Bob were the first family members to meet Blake and they were the first family members to meet me. I met their daughter Jan and their grandson Michael Robert that day too and they all fell in love with me because I was two pounds of irresistible.

I spent lots of time there and both Uncle Bob and Auntie Bev, who thought they were too old for their own dog, enjoyed our visits, stroking us, playing with us, and they were just about two of my favorite people. A few years ago Uncle Bob got very sick and had to go to the bridge leaving poor Auntie Bev alone.

It was during that time that Daddy began to go over there on trash day, to take out the trash, and to sit and listen and learn about life.

She would tell him stories of harder times, growing up in a real Depression, with her grandfather’s sea chest, filled with worthless stock certificates, anchoring their poverty. She had calming, wisdom-scented conversations with our Mommy when she was diagnosed with cancer, anchoring her anxieties. And Auntie and Daddy would sit, in the late Tuesday afternoon sunshine, and release the pent up frustration, either deserved or not, that their various family members had inflicted on them. It was the best therapy for them both, familiar, comfortable as old shoes, as warm as a blanket near a fire.

She was a small woman to start, all Gays are small, and arthritis began robbing her of her freedoms young. She had both knees replaced, and a hip, and a broken shoulder that never properly healed. She walked with the aid of at least one cane, hunched over, slowly inching her way forward. With her myriad of physical problems she and Uncle Bob had agreed that she would be the first to go, but when death picked it’s own order, and the couple who had been married for more than 50 years were delivered the crushing news, Aunt Bev reminded Uncle Bob of his promise to let her pass into the night first. Uncle Bob contemplated this promise and his limited mortality for several seconds then surmised: “Bev, did you ever consider they just don’t want you?”

Aunt Bev’s family took her car away after Uncle Bob’s death. This made her angry because she was sure she could drive, as were we, but it was the stopping and turning that gave us pause. She still tried to exert as much independence as possible. One Tuesday Daddy could not find her anywhere and was ready to scour the neighborhood when she appeared from behind the shed, cane in one hand, bag of acorns in another. She would also venture down the cramped, adventurous cellar stairs, wedged in an entryway after the builder realized he hadn’t provided basement access and shoved them in, thin steps six inches high (it was built shortly after World War II when the country was much more forgiving) where Aunt Bev, against everyone’s wishes, would venture down to do her laundry, then make her ascent, one step at a time, tottering on each steep, but perhaps with Uncle Bob’s invisible hand still guiding her, making it to the top step and latching the door behind her, a chore she saved for Tuesdays, knowing if Uncle Bob’s hand was elsewhere and she went backwards down the steps Daddy would know what to do. Her faith in him was strong, more so than ours, as we don’t trust him to properly distribute our mail.

On Saturday morning Uncle Bob’s eternal hand was not there to catch her as she had a stroke in her bathroom. Daddy’s Daddy found her slumped against the bathroom door, and called 911. They took her to the hospital where they made their diagnosis and it became clear to all, but her, that she could no longer live independently.

Daddy visited her on Tuesday. She seemed impossibly small in the hospital bed, as if her lost independence had given her an aura that still lay on the bathroom floor like discarded nightwear. The always fraying string that anchored her to our world had become dangerously thin, but Daddy sat enraptured in her story about the gun fight in her hospital room the night before; the woman in the next bed who sat up in the window all night with her gun pointed, ready; the nurses who covered Aunt Bev with sheets so she would not be caught in the cross fire; the black cowboy named Bill who swore to protect her (and when a male nurse, bald and black, came in to check on her, then left, Aunt Bev leaned forward and whispered “that’s Bill.” Growing up in the industrial Northeast Daddy was sure “Bill” had been called worse than “Cowboy.”) Daddy then gave her a kiss and left, as he did every Tuesday, but this time there was no trash or recycling, just a lonely wait for an elevator as a nervous couple skittered back and forth wrestling with the same decisions that faced Auntie Bev’s immediate family.

If life is nasty, brutish, and short then the end is an NBA game where the final minutes stretch out forever with hard fouls, missed free throws, and unnecessary time outs. Prayers will be said, deals brokered, imaginary death panels consulted, but no one can stop Auntie Bev’s, or anyone else’s, inevitable end. Daddy would love one more Tuesday sitting with her in her living room as the sun sets discussing the unimportant issues of the day. But the sun is setting, time is growing short, and her chair, which sits next to the chair Uncle Bob vacated two years previous, sits vacant, as does the couch where Daddy sat, as the lonesome trash days begin to build up.

Naming Daddy

I was reading my Daddy’s boyhood dog Barney’s diary last night looking for more wit and wisdom when I found an interesting conversation he had with my Daddy when he was a boy.

My Daddy never played sports. That uncoordinated bugaboo got him. But when he was a boy he liked to grab his glove and throw the ball against the pitch back set up under the maple trees.

One day he was doing this and a storm came up. He ran into the cellar. He liked it there when it rained because he looked like a Major Leaguer peering out of the dugout. It had been a hot day, and Barney had taken refuge in the cellar, but he smelled his friend on the steps, stood, stretched, and walked over to him.

He sat down next to Daddy who stroked his heavy black fur. Because Barney was an outside dog and didn’t cotton to baths Daddy ended up with a thin film of black on his hand. Barney wasn’t like dogs today. He roamed the neighborhood and ruled it from one end to the other.

My Daddy’s Auntie lived up the street from him and across the street lived mean Mr. Medas and mean Mr Medas owned a mean dog. One day Barney walked up the street to my Auntie’s to say hey, and then crossed the street, stuck his big black bear head in Mr Medas’ garage and saw a large bag of Gravy Train in the corner. Well Barney stood on his back legs, bit the top of the bag, and tipped it. He then began to drag the bag down the street. A little ways past the garage a small hole opened in the bag. Daddy was in his yard looking up the street, and saw Barney dragging something. He waited at the end of the driveway. Barney walked to him, put the bag at his feet, and said “See, I don’t need you for food,” and right behind Barney was mean Mr. Medas following the trail of food that Barney had left from the ripped bag.

Barney was blessed with several lives, and this one he shook off with a look of disdain and a quiet “next time lock up your food” mumble. On this rainy day Barney was not whittling away one of his many lives and was more interested in the beginning of Daddy’s.

“Your name is Teddy isn’t it?” Barney asked.

“Well Barn, it’s Ted, but Mom calls me Teddy,” Daddy said.

“But when I walked to your school,” it was less than a quarter mile from Daddy’s house, “and sat outside the door I heard them call you Edgar.”

Daddy looked out at the rain. “Well that’s my real name,” he said in a dejected voice.

“Why would these slope nosed losers name their son Edgar?” Barney asked.

“Well,” Daddy said throwing the ball in his glove. “My grandfather’s name is Edgar, and Daddy’s name is Edgar, so I am Edgar as well.”

“You poor bastard,” Barney said and licked Daddy’s hand. “Why would someone named Edgar name their son Edgar?”

“Well my Dad’s Dad, he was named Edgar so I imagined his Dad did it just out of revenge.”

“And what about yours?” Barney asked.

Daddy took a big sigh. “Well, before I was born, when Mom was pregnant with me, Mom and Dad didn’t talk very much. So along came the day that I was to be born and they got in the car together and drove to the hospital. Still not speaking. They loaded Mom on to the gurney while her husband began watching the television in the waiting room and, as she got to the doors to go into the operating room she looked up at my Dad and says ‘what do you want to call it?’

“Now my Dad had always been an ornery sort, and he can’t give a straight answer. He could have said Timmy, or Dave, or Kenny, or even Barney would have been acceptable, but instead he said ‘Anything but Edgar’ which would have been OK, if, just as my Father was saying ‘anything but’ the gurney hadn’t crashed into the door, drowning out these two words, and leaving the only thing Mom could hear being Edgar.”

My Daddy took a sip of water he had in a green bottle and looked out at the pouring rain. “So Mom gives birth to me, and they ask her what to name her son, and she tells the nurses that, while she hates the name, it would make the baby’s father very happy if the baby was named Edgar.

“Meanwhile in the baby waiting room my father was anxiously waiting to meet his son Stevie or Joey. The nurse led him down to the room where my Mother was holding me and my Father’s heart filled with all the love heaven would allow and he asked his son’s name.

“And when he heard it, all that love that had filled his heart, was squeezed out like a mean clown crushing a child’s happy birthday balloon, and in that moment, I heard, for the first of many times, the sound of my parents fighting, and my little feet and little arms began moving in a running motion, and one of the nurses squealed in delight at my cute activity, which my parents were oblivious to as they called each other friggen idiots and simultaneously caused five women to undilate three inches, and for a thirty mile radius, I was the only boy or girl to have February the 13th as a birthday.’

Barney rested a paw on Daddy’s leg and gave his arm a lick. This was truly a sad story, told with no embellishments, because frankly, there was little need for any, of a boy who would grow up to be a slow-witted middle-aged man. “Must have been rough in school,” Barney said.

“Well,” Daddy said. “I walked to school with Mom on the first day of first grade and all the way I said please don’t tell them to call me Edgar, please don’t tell them to call me Edgar. She takes me to class. The teacher asks my name. She says Edgar. I vomited. That was my first day of school.”

Daddy looked outside at the rain. “Then in second or third grade I had had enough. I said I did not want to be called Edgar again. I wanted the name of a famous athlete. From that day forward I wanted to be called OJ. OJ Gay. Thankfully that didn’t stick.”

Barney looked up with his deep brown eyes. “Yeah I didn’t want to bring that up. The Gay thing. That was kind of a tough one.”

“You know, I got to sixth grade, and it was a new school,” Daddy said. “And my mother wasn’t going to be taking me to school so I could tell them whatever name I wanted. The teacher asked my name and I said Ted and then she asked my last name and I said Gay and everyone started laughing. Seems like over the summer all the homosexuals decided they would rather be known as Gay. Now I don’t have anything against homosexuals, but if they were going to hijack my name, they should have at least sent me a postcard warning me.”

The rain had stopped. Daddy sat with Barney awhile longer, then gave him a pat on the head and ran outside to throw against his pitch back again. Barney watched him. Edgar. Edgar Gay actually. Edgar Gay III to get quite specific. Edgar Amos Gay III to go to an area even Barney didn’t want to explore.

Barney realized what carrying that name meant. It meant he wouldn't be picked first in sports, wouldn’t be a ladies’ man, and only trust a few people not to make a cruel or biting remark during a casual conversation about something he had no control over.

Barney turned and walked back down the stairs knowing this about his Daddy: No matter where he went or what he did, his true best friends would always be the furry four legged kind, and that would make a few selected dogs very happy.

Mommy Stole My Facebook Accout

I start my morning like most Americans. I take my human out for his morning walk, hoping to squeeze in a pee and possibly a Vick (that’s my new word for it, thanks to the wit and wisdom of my good friends Reba and Dodger) then go inside, have a bowl of water, some morning kibble and turkey, and check my e-mails.

I saw a message from one of my human Facebook friends, and I clicked it, and was stunned by what I saw. My Mommy, my most trusted human, had stolen my Facebook page.

I looked over at Daddy, sitting in his recliner, with Pocket sitting on his shoulder licking his mouth, while he tried to program the DVR. I asked him why my Facebook account was changed. “Ask Mommy,” he said. That was his answer for everything. I don’t even know why I asked. (Yes I do. Spite. When you interrupt Daddy programming the DVR he has to start again.)

Then I went upstairs to the bathroom where my Mom was taking her shower and waited outside. When the water stopped I began scratching on the door. “What do you want?” she asked.

“I have a bone to pick with you!” I said.

“Just leave it downstairs and I’ll pull your tail hair out of your dental bone when I’m done.”

I growled softly, went downstairs, and jumped on the couch where I had the laptop running. I waited as patiently as six pounds of fur can wait.

“What are you doing Foles?” she asked when she came downstairs.

“Oh nothing, just was going to spend a pleasant morning on my Facebook page. But what did I find? My page is suddenly your page.”

Mommy smiled that smile that she smiles when she is going to say something I am going to find disagreeable. She sat down on the couch next to me. Very presumptuous. Sitting on my couch. Using my computer. Someone was being a bad girl.

“Most of the Mommies on Facebook use their own pictures so we can get to know eachother better,” she said stroking my head. “But I put up lots of pictures of you and Pocket and everyone made me promise I will still run your blogs.”

“Oh I see, so I’ll do all the work and you receive all the glory is that it?”

“Of course not,” she said petting my head. “I do your typing, and I do some editing, so in a way we both write, and I think this is something we could do together.”

“Well I certainly wasn’t consulted!” I said as Mommy moved down to just above my chest where I love to be scratched. “I just feel that it is the least you can do to let someone know…..oh….oh yeah right there……oh yeah….that’s the spot….oh god that’s good stuff……oh baby you give some good scratch…..mmmmmmm.”

She continued to scratch me for almost five minutes as all my nasty thoughts floated away and the next thing I knew I was on my back with my legs spread getting my belly rubbed. I swear my Mommy’s middle and forefingers are more reliable then Ruffies. She stood up, straightened her clothing and went to make breakfast.

I lay on the couch, basking in my post scratch glow, when Pocket jumped up next to me. “Hey some lady stole our Facebook page!” she said.

Egads! That wanton woman had put my bad thoughts in a box and tried to float it away. But thanks to Pocket I had my big box of wronged back. “That lady is our Mommy!” I said jumping off the couch.

“That lady’s last name is Gay,” Pocket said. “Oh Lord, I’m Pocket Gay. I’m so getting wedgied in gym.”

I marched into the dining room where Mommy was eating breakfast. I put my feet on her legs to get her attention. “What is it Baby-Baby?” she asked.

“We need to talk about Facebook!” I barked.

“Hold on I can’t hear you let me pick you up,” she said. I was put on her lap and began to air my grievances. “Excuse me honey would you like some bacon? It’s Applewood.”

I knew this was a trick. Give the dog bacon and shut it up. Well not this time lady. Just because it smells so good, and is so crispy, and I can even taste it.

“Yes, yes, gimmie bacon, gimmie bacon, gimmie bacon!” I said.

I happily gobbled down the bacon as Mommy picked up the dishes and put them in the dishwasher then went upstairs to do her hair. Pocket twice approached me and I snapped at her thinking she had set her sights on my bacon. When I was done and licking the fur that held the bacon she came back. “I thought you were going to talk to Mommy about Facebook,” he said.

“Facebook!” I said. This woman had more tricks then the Hilton Sisters. I composed myself. “Pocket, go upstairs and confront Mommy about the Facebook page.”

“But I don’t really care,” Pocket said.

“Pocket, buddy, please, just go upstairs and tell Mommy to put the Facebook page back in our name or you’ll run away.”

“Oh I wouldn’t run away Foley!”

I bit my lip. “You don’t have to run away Pocket, just the thought of losing you will scare her,” I barked.

“Really? She loves me that much.”

“Yes,” I lied. “Just go.”

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and I head Mommy talking to her in her sweet voice and a few seconds later Pocket came back down the stairs wagging her stubby little tail.

“You’re right she would be very said if I ran away!” Pocket said.

“What about Facebook?” I asked.

“What’s Facebook?”

Grrrrrrrrr. I promised the President that I would be good but he had never met my little sister.

Mommy then called to me that if I wanted to talk to her I better get up there. I ran up the stairs. She was sitting just a step above where the warm sun was shining. I was directly in the sunlight as I began to make my case.

“Pocket and I have a following on the internet, on TB, on our blog, and Facebook. Oh I say this sun is deliciously warm. Anyway, to change it without our consent well it’s going to confuse…..oh it’s warming up my fur, and it’s making me sleepy. Well, anyway. You must immediately change, (yawn), go back (big yawn and a stretch on the floor), you must book face change Mommy sleepy night night.”

Four hours later Pocket woke me. I yawned and looked around. Mommy had gone out. I had to admit. I might think I run the house, but Mommy certainly knows my weak points: a good scratch, bacon, and sunlight.

When she came home Mommy surprised me with my own Twitter account. Now you can read my every thought at: http://twitter.com/FoleyMons. I am upset about the Facebook account, but I can tweet away night and day. And God knows what I’ll say.

Oh my God I rhymed. I think I’m going to be great at this.

Who wants to be Foley's Daddy

Daddy, the less intelligent of the two slope noses that I live with, got a call from someone called a PA yesterday after he had something called an MRI. Do you find it as annoying as I do that so many humans speak in initials?

Well there was good news and bad news. The good news is that he does not have a torn ligament. “Nice,” I thought when he said it. “I haven’t had a good walk in two months while girlie man here is limping around with a splinter in his leg.”

Then he said that the MRI had shown he has a fractured leg. Well. That’s a shame.

Daddy doesn’t know what they are going to do, immobilize him (how do you immobilize someone who only moves to eat and pee?), put him in a cast, or operate on him. If they operate he may not be recovered until February. That’s when I realized what I needed: A new Daddy.

So I am putting out an open casting call for a new Daddy for Pocket and me. You will get a nice bed to sleep in, very good meals (Mommy is a great cook), and the forever friendship of two wonderful Yorkies (OK, one wonderful Yorkie and Pissy.)

So you don’t waste your time coming for an audition when you have no shot of getting the gig let me give you the characteristics we are looking for:

You need to have the ability to walk: Sorry, Daddy, but this is where you really fell down on the job. If you have trouble remembering this qualification then memorize this handy couplet: Foley doesn’t require a lot of walking / Just slightly more than Steven Hawking. Ten to fifteen minutes a day is fine. Just understand that interjected into this walking will be long spells of standing while Pocket and I sniff every square inch of ground we cross so this fifteen minute walk could take an hour and a half. So walking, and more importantly standing, is required. And please, no Segway scooters, I would rather be outside with a one legged Daddy then a two-legged geek.

You need to differentiate between green balls and be ready to throw one at all times: Pocket has two green balls. One she chases. One she ignores. You need to, with little notice, tell which ball is the ball that she chases, and throw it, and then retrieve it from wherever she dropped it, and throw it again, for hours if necessary. You need to be able to find the ball when Pocket drops it and noses it behind or under furniture. To give you a hint Pocket will run headfirst into several objects in the general vicinity of the ball’s location. This is where Daddy’s cane comes in handy. He used it several times to scoop the balls out of tight spots. Also you can’t be all prissy about getting your hand covered with dog goop. Pocket leaves lots of goop on her ball after she’s been playing with it.

You are going to be required to take a lot of s**t: And dispose of it. We live at a condo complex so whenever we double you have to pick it up and either bring it to the dumpster or to the toilet with the not always reliable flush. Now I don’t like the dumpster so when you go near it expect me to be pulling you to get away from the big, loud, smelly thing with the giant mouth. And don’t forget after you’ve done a pick up and put it in your pocket (because you’re holding two leashes), you don’t want to be like Daddy and be at work, someone asks you for a tissue, and you pull out one filled with double. When you throw it away you have to tell the inquisitive people that it was just some s**t you found.

You need to brush your teeth a lot and taste good: Whenever Daddy brushes his teeth Pocket and I wait for him. When he sits down we are both in his mouth fighting for a good lick spot. Second mouthed toothpaste tastes great. First mouthed, we don’t like as much. Once we’ve removed all the toothpaste I insist on either being scratched just above my chest or to lick your hand until every bit of salt is off. Pocket will also want you to play tug of war so you better have both hands free. Plus in bed we both will lick your mouth, and then I will lick your hands, arm, face, while Pocket will insist on playing tug of war. Oh, plus I’ll jump on your wrist and hump it like a puppy who just discovered his rocket. Trust me, you become my replacement Daddy you’ll get more action in the sack than a Kardasian.

So this is what we are looking for: A middle aged man, good looking for Mommy, good salary, who can walk but is patient so we can stop and smell the flowers; who can tell the difference between a dog’s green balls; doesn’t mind a pocket full of Pocket s**t; and doesn’t mind getting his toothpaste licked out of his mouth, leaving both hands free for licking and tug of war, and doesn’t mind an occasional wrist hump.

If you think you have what it takes then go to Gillette Stadium on Sunday at noon time where we will be holding auditions. The judges will be me, Pocket, and Posh Spice because we just couldn’t afford Paula. Hope to see you there.

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Pocket's not a bad dog? Is she?

I went to the groomers on Saturday. I had so much fun there. We played avoid the clippers, splash the bath, wiggle under the dryer. I love the groomers. But I love it more when I hear my Mommy and Daddy come in. I couldn’t wait until the pretty lady got the cage door open. I leapt out into her arms and began to do the push off so I could get to Mommy. The pretty girl had me in one arm and the docile Foley in the other and when she got to my Mommy she handed me over and said: “This ones so bad.”

So bad? Who? Me?

I’m not bad? Am I?

I’m not saying I’m perfect. No pup is. But bad? I know I bark a lot when Mommy or Daddy gets me out of the crate when they get home. They do all the things the people trainers say. They don’t act excited, they don’t even really talk to me. But all the way down stairs, while I am getting leashed up, going out the door, and even peeing, I’m barking my little head off. But that’s not bad. Is it?

And I totally validated the Iranian election too early. I had never counted an election before. I did a few provinces, thought I saw a trend, threw out the rest of the ballots and called it a day. My fault. Totally. But does that make me bad?

I don’t do real good with commands either. I don’t “shush” real good or pay attention to “quiet” or even the harder edged “shut up!” not when I’m chasing my green ball or imagining that I see something outside. There is one command that does quiet me. It usually comes from Daddy. It’s one word. It’s short. It’s easy to remember. It’s f**k. Now that gets my attention. I wish that was my name. It sounds like what Batman would call his dog. “Come here F**k the Joker has poisoned the water supply.” But making my Daddy call me that doesn’t make me bad does it? He doesn’t just say it to me. He yells it at the TV a lot especially when those Red Stocking are playing. Sometimes I get jealous because F**k is my word.

I probably mishandled the entire Universal Health Care thing. I think I wrote it well but didn’t present it properly. I mis-read the public mood, admittedly. But that doesn’t make me a bad dog.

The peeing and pooping? I know that’s a problem. The other day my Mommy let me out of my crate and Daddy said “just let her run down stairs to me.” Mommy knew it was a bad idea but she let me anyway and I left a trail of pee all the way down the stairs. (At least I could find my way back.) We all decided that, of course, this was not my fault but Daddy’s. But that doesn’t make him a bad Daddy, or me a bad dog.

My plan for Government-established central banks that artificially lowered interest rates by increasing the supply of money (and thus the funds banks have available to lend) through the banking system was a mistake. This was supposed to stimulate the economy. What it did was mislead investors into embarking on an investment boom that the artificially low rates seemed to validate but that in fact could not be sustained under existing economic conditions. Investments that would have correctly been assessed as unprofitable were falsely appraised as profitable, and over time the result was the squandering of countless resources in lines of investment that should never have been begun. My fault, true, but it doesn’t make me bad.

My problems outside are annoying, but not bad. The zig-zagging; the sudden stops and starts; the prolonged sniffing; the barking at anything that moves causing the rest of the neighborhood dogs to bark; the waiting to pee until I’m on a neighbor’s walkway; the holding my poo until I get back inside the house; the running up to my human neighbors and then turning tail and running when they go to pet me; my ongoing fued with the sinister Chihuaha: I don’t think any of these are the definition of bad.

My agreement with LT to steal your doggy pictures off our site and put them on his site to fool his advertisers into think there are more members then their actually are, was disgusting, immoral, unethical and probably illegal but not the actions of what someone would call a “bad dog.”

My insistence that my Tanner Brigade bandana is a chew toy, and how, when I’m wearing it, I roll on the ground until it is off then chew on the ends, or, when I am not wearing it, how I stand on my back legs, use my claws to open the bottom desk drawer, and pull out the bandana to chew on it is disrespectful and a blatant breaking of the rules, but not bad. Was it?

Although inventing the term “thread closed” and selling the license for it to LT, to stop any discussion he doesn’t like, that might have been bad.

Yeah definitely bad.

To the bone.