This page ©1999 Chip Brown.
For the Dogs
My wife tells me I have a way with kids and dogs. She says I don't have much of a way with anything else, but kids and dogs I have mastered.
There is a simple reason for this, kids talk on my
level. They don't bore me with politics and world problems, all they want
to know about is how to break things and get dirty. This I understand! I
like dogs too. Dogs and I have a lot in common. In fact my wife told me once
that the only difference in me and a good dog, is that a dog feels guilty
when it does something wrong.
When I was a little kid my mom and dad bought me a German Shepherd from the pound. The lady at the pound explained that he was a police dog who flunked the training course. Yeah, I knew me and that dog were going to get along.
We got a few ground rules settled, well he outweighed me by fifty pounds so he set the rules. They weren't hard to follow, I came to call them the "Big Dog" rules. That's what I called my dog when I brought him home. Mom and dad bought me a buddy...I was terrified of my new friend. I just pointed at him and screamed big dog!
Rules of the Big Dog:
1) If the big dog likes it, it's best to just let him have it.
It only took me one bloody arm, to figure this first rule out.
2) If it's in the Big Dog's mouth it belongs to him.
It made no difference how many years I had owned this object, once he had
it in his mouth it was best to sign over the title to him.
3) Anything I owned that he could take would become his possession.
Sneak up behind me and bark and as I ran off he would take my new toy. I
have no doubt that my Johnny West action figure is buried somewhere in Dad's
yard.
4) If Big Dog is chewing up my toy, it is his.
I must say that this law has one loophole. Once it's chewed up and Mom was
looking for someone to blame for the destruction of the $29 action figure,
Big Dog allowed me to claim ownership of it again, at least until Mom wasn't
mad any more.
But as I got bigger than him, we began to develop a mutual understanding. If he was nice to me he got Gravy Train. If I was nice to him no chunks would be bitten out of my rear end.
Being a flunky from police school didn't mean my dog wasn't smart. Actually he had a very high vocabulary. What he thought the words meant was a bit faulty, but he recognized the words.
He understood the word leash. Now I realize most dogs learn this word. However, Big Dog thought that a leash was a device to drag Chip down the street with.
I'm not sure he ever knew what they were called, but he understood garbage cans. He thought they were some sort of Chinese puzzle for dogs. Every night he would walk around the neighborhood working all the puzzles and being rewarded with stale bread and meat wrappers. Most of which he carried home.
I think he believed bicycles were dog toys. Kids rode bicycles around the neighborhood to amuse him, he was sure. The game was for Big Dog to hide behind a bush and as the little girl rode by, jump out and bark loudly. This causes the little girl to swerve and wreck her bike. This once resulted in Dad getting two doctor bills. One from the parents of the little girl with scraped knees. And another from the vet to remove the sucker, the little girl dropped, from Big Dog's throat.
But the number one reason I prefer dogs to people is the fact that they listen. You can say anything you want to a dog and they look at you like "Wow I would have never thought of that!" No matter what you say, a dog thinks you're the smartest person they know. I like that. My human friends could learn from dogs.
The contents of this page does not necessarily represent the opinions of Maynardville.Com, it's owners or the staff.
