Woof, Cough, Snort, Choke, WOOOOOF!

Mornin’ everyone - This is your good buddy, Beau.
Lena is taking the day off today so I asked her if I could tell you a story about what happened to Daisy and me the other day when we went to town with Grandpa. You know, we’re quite experienced travelers. We go to town in the back of the truck at least three times a week. I just can’t get enough – here’s a picture of me getting a snoot full. All those smells are so wonderful, except when I get a bug up my nose.

Now that it’s getting colder Grandpa has started to enforce his weather rule. If it’s below 40 degrees we have to ride inside the cab. Daisy thinks she’s so smart when we do that. She sits by the passenger door pretending she’s a human. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to be inside where it’s warm, but I sure miss catching up on all those smells.

We’re really lucky dogs, Daisy and I. Every day we drive by this big black German shepherd that’s in jail. I wonder what he did. He’s just laying there in his little fenced in jail watching the world go by, rain or shine. He never barks when we go by, but we sure bark at him. He looks so unhappy. I’m gonna’ make sure I never do anything to end up in jail like that! I wonder if his owner ever comes out to pet him or play with him. I heard one time that he’s a retired police dog. What a way to end up.

Daisy and I think we live in dog heaven. Of course there’s work involved too. We’ve got five acres that we have to patrol – you know – keep out all the burglars and other critters that think they can trespass on our property. There’re rabbits and birds and the occasional deer, but the thing that drives me absolutely nuts are the squirrels. They’re so busy robbing Grandpa’s trees of the black walnuts that he grows. And then they have the audacity (neener, Poolie, neener) to sit there in the high branches of the trees, just out of my jumping reach, and twitter at me. One day they made me so mad I tried to climb a tree, but I didn’t get very far. But, boy, if I catch them in open ground I can run fast enough to almost snatch them by their tail. One of these days - - - one of these days.

Talking about running fast – I’m a real sprinter. If I’ve got something important to go after I can stretch out almost flat to the ground and really go. Only I just don’t last very long at that speed – only a mile or so and I have to slow down to catch my breath. That’s where Daisy really shows me up. She can’t run as fast as I can, but she can run forever. I guess we’re like the tortoise and the hare. Last night when Grandpa took us for our nightly run out in the country she proved that point again. Grandpa doesn’t usually let us chase things out in the country, but this time we got away from him. Daisy smelled deer tracks in the ditch, so we put our noses to the ground and tracked. It was just at dusk, so things were hard to see, but I’ll be darned if we didn’t come upon that deer a bit farther down the ditch. Grandpa must not have seen it or something, but we scared it up and took off after it. I was right on its tail with Daisy trailing behind – across the bare field we went watching that white tail flashing in the dusk. Daisy kept getting farther and farther behind but I was keeping up!! When all of a sudden we heard Grandpa yell at us and not in a very nice tone of voice either. So we stopped dead in our tracks and had to make the decision to keep on having fun or head back to the truck. I thought Grandpa wouldn’t see us at that time of the day because we blend in so well with the bare fields, but that darn Grandma went and bought us each a collar that lights up. It doesn’t just glow in the dark, it actually lights up!! Mine is neon orange and Daisy’s is bright red and they light up all the way around our necks. Darn – now there’s no getting away with anything.

Anyway, I was going to tell you what happened to us in town the other day. After the gym, Grandpa always stops for lunch either at McDonald’s or Burger Time and we share cheeseburgers (and ice cream in the summer time). So we were parked in the parking lot and Grandpa was standing outside by the truck box feeding us our cheeseburgers when all of a sudden, going through the drive-through line was another truck with a big black German shepherd in the back. She was beautiful. Somehow I had to let her know I was there, but I had my mouth full of cheeseburger, and you know it’s impolite to bark and chew at the same time. Oh, what to do. I didn’t know if I should bark or finish chewing and swallow my lunch. So I tried to do both at the same time and it didn’t work. I got out this pesky, wee little bark, choked on my cheeseburger and then it went flying out of my mouth and landed on the rail of the box. Oh, how embarrassing. I sure couldn’t make an impression on her that way. And then I didn’t know what to do next – should I bark again and show her what a big bark I can have or should I pick up what was left of my cheeseburger so she wouldn’t see the mess. What’s a dog to do? Well, the cheeseburger won out cause by that time I figured I wasn’t going to get to meet her personally anyway. So why give up good food.

THEN – oh how embarrassing – she ended up parking right next to us in the parking lot. And Grandpa went over and got introduced to her of all things, and got to pet her. Her name was Baby Girl and she was an Amazon!! Huge!! Put Daisy and me to shame and we each weigh 75 pounds. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a good idea to get mixed up with a girl dog THAT big. I barked a couple more times, but she didn’t pay any attention. What a slap in the face cause I’m a pretty handsome dude. Daisy just sat there and took it all in. She thought I was making a fool of myself – but then what does she know – she’s a girl.

Oh well, guess I’ll just stick to my cheeseburgers next time!