BarkingProse

Betcha didn’t know a dog can stick his tongue out and look silly, just like a person. I didn’t mean for mom to take a picture of me acting goofy, but she did.

Hard to say why I stuck my tongue out.  The tongue part looks stupid but my eyes are looking inward so I know I was thinking about stuff that matters.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the lives we lead. Us mutts have it pretty good at Asherpark. We have our people who love us. We have our own little pack and like hanging out together. When we get sick we go see the doc. When we get real dirty we get a bath.

That wasn’t always the case for Jack and Nellie. When Jack got taken away from his home he was covered in fleas, he had sores on his skin, his eyes were glued shut with yucky puss, and he was much too skinny.

Nellie came to us with a horrible stinky infection in her pee trap. She had a hair ball stuck to her back leg the size of a grapefruit. All her stinky pee had gone into that hairball till it took on a life of its own. You could smell Nellie a block away and she didn’t smell so good.

I asked mom why people have a mutt if they don’t want to take care of it. Why would anybody be mean to a mutt? If you have a mutt and you don’t like that mutt, you can drop it off at a shelter. You don’t even have to pay anything.

When I look at little Nellie and see how fragile she is, it makes me crazy to think of somebody being mean to her. She’s like this delicate little spirit. All she wants to do is follow mom around and feel loved.

Jack looks big and tough, but he’s a softie too. He doesn’t ask for nothing. Just to be part of the pack and know his people will never walk out on him.

I got to think about all this some more. It makes my head hurt trying to figure out why some people are so cold hearted. Mom told me to stop thinking. She said I’ve got responsibilities here at Asherpark. I’ve got to keep things moving and make sure everybody has some fun. I’m gonna stop thinking for a while. Time to go bark at that fool neighbor dog. See ya!

Halloween was my favorite day when we lived in the city. Little kids would dress up in funny costumes and come to our door. They were all hyped up on sugar candy and I was all hyped up because the door bell kept ringing.

Codie had to go upstairs because she couldn’t stop barking. I was just a pup then and was more interested in jumping on the kids and grabbing their candy. Mom tried to keep all my four paws on the ground but it didn’t work.

The bigger kids laughed when I stuck my snout in their candy bag. Oh man, some of those kids sure had a lot of loot. One time I snatched an apple from a kid. Mom was horrified but the kid didn’t want the apple anyway.

Now we live in the country and nobody rings our door bell on Halloween. I really miss all the chaos. Mom tells me how happy she is not to have us dogs yapping like a bunch of fools.

Jack and Nellie don’t understand Halloween, so I told mom we had to do something fun with them. We’re gonna get a couple of little bags and put dog biscuits in them. Then when Nellie and Jack come to the front door me and Tess will spring out of the shadows and scare them. After they get over being scared, mom is gonna give them each a little bag of treats.

Tess says shes wants a bag of treats too, but she already knows about Halloween. Treats are for the mutts who never got to trick or treat.

Later we’re gonna make a little fire outside and watch the moon. If we’re lucky the owls will howl and the coyotes will talk trash to each other. The people will probably have something hot to drink and us mutts will get another treat or two. Mom might even lead us in  howl fest. I hope so. She sure looks silly when she howls.

Anyway, that’s what we got planned for Halloween. Maybe you and your mutts should do something fun too. See ya!