My parents say that I say that I am the perfect combination of the pups who came before me: I have Blake's Intelligence, Foley’s spirit, Pocket’s sweetness, and River’s devotion. My mom says it is like they all came to visit me in my sleep to teach me how to be the dog who could repair my mom’s severely broken hearts.
They did.
But there is another dog, one who I never met, and only heard of, running around the woods at the Bridge, seen occasionally like a sasquatch.
Last week I was having a dream date high tea with my predecessors when a short but thick legged black animal, covered in mud, was emitting a smell that offended my delicate nose. It barely acknowledged us, grabbed a burger and ran into the woods.
“What was that?” I asked, startled
“That was the original dog, Barney the Beast, he was the first dog that was my dad’s, and since he was the one, 30 years ago, who convinced Mom to get a dog, Barney is our maker. If Barney was mean or aloof, our dad may not have been so determined to get a dog, and they would be the lonely, sad, anti-social couple who split a left over pizza on Easter Sunday instead of the lonely, sad, antisocial couple who split a leftover pizza on Easter Sunday and have a cute dog.
(Not that you should feel sorry for them. If they did get an Easter invite they would be checking their phones every minute because they have a compulsion to check on me, and will leave early, saying they I miss them, which I do, but they are the ones missing me, and in these days of humans belonging to the DCBFL (dog, cat, bird, fish, lizard) community humans should be able to say they miss their dogs and want to leave.)
(Also, before they set up the camera I would happily curl into a ball and sleep while they were gone, but they didn’t buy the camera to watch me contently sleeping so I have to walk back and forth, bark at the window, and pretend to be agitated so they think I miss them. It's exhausting.)
Back at the dream date, as we watched video of them sleeping, to see how they liked it, I could hear sounds of Barney running in the woods.
A dog who ran free but still came back at night on his own, who made an entire neighborhood their kingdom, and, dare I wonder, was unneutered was a dog I had to get to know better.
My education continues.
Barney sounds like an interesting character. We hope you get to know him better through your dreams.
ReplyDeleteRuby Rose this is the highest honor a sweet puppy could receive.
ReplyDeleteHugs to your Mom for telling us
Cecilia
Chaplin: "A dog who ran free through the woods? Sounds a bit like Tucker and Trixie in their younger days, back in New York, at least according to the stories they used to tell Dennis ..."
ReplyDelete