BarkingProse

Remember me barking about my pals the Labradors? Maybe I forgot to mention that their dad is a reporter. He writes all kinds of stuff but this time he wrote about mutts and put Libby’s picture in the story.

The lead to the story got lots of his readers upset. “Medical researchers have long shown that contact with pets can often help both the physically and mentally ill. But now, veterinary scientists say sleeping with your pets increases the chances of contracting everything from parasites to the plague.”

Check this out. Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie in Your Bed Can Kill You

Mom started laughing when she saw the picture of Libby all curled up. We’ve seen Libby do a lot of sleeping at Asherpark. She’s either using me as her private tug toy or grabbing a quick nap. She’s the first to hop on the bed in mom’s studio. Then she hogs the whole space. Look here at this picture Libby’s dad took a couple of years ago. There she is on the bed at their cabin!

Tess is real upset about the story. I’m not too worried. I prefer to sleep on the floor anyway. But Tess is stressed. Tess says she has to have some bed time or she’ll get cranky. I got news for Tess. She’s cranky even with bed time.

Me and mom talked it over. She explained that when we’ve been rolling in nasty stuff or hanging with the goats, we can’t get on the bed. That makes sense. She doesn’t want us bringing all the dirty bugs with us. But when we’re nice and clean we can each spend a little time in bed before it’s lights out.

I had a hard time with one of the words in the story. Zoonoses! What a silly word. Being kinda literal I thought it meant all the noses at a zoo. Nope. The news story says zoonoses are diseases or infections transmitted from animals to humans.  Hmmm. No mention of the diseases people could give us.

The story says us mutts can make people sick from licking them. I want the world to know I’ve licked my mom a hundred million times since I was a pup and it’s never  made her sick. She says my kisses are magic because they make her laugh even when she’s in a bad mood.

Libby’s worried that she’ll get blamed for the story her dad wrote. I don’t think so. We’re worried that maybe Libby won’t get as much bed time now that her people got all this science stuff in their heads. Don’t worry Libby. You’ll always have a nice soft bed at Asherpark!

You’ve probably figured out that I’m a sports dog. If I played football I’d be a wide receiver. Baseball, I’d wanna be Ichiro. Basketball – Air Jordan!

Mom says since I’m about to turn five I have to take it easy on the flyboy stuff. A couple of months ago I went to see the chiropractor. Dr. Hannah told us my knee was inflamed, probably from too much jumping. She told me and Mom I couldn’t play ball the whole weekend! That was terrible.

I’m better now but Mom still won’t hit me the high balls like she used to. I do jump ball anyway even if I could catch it with all four paws on the ground. It’s more fun when you have hang time.

There’s one sport that I’ve loved since I was a pup. Mom calls it running the fence line. Obviously you need a fence and at least one opponent. You line up on each side of the fence and square off  to start the game. Then you both run up and down the fence line barking like a fool.

The neighbor dog Zoey is kinda dumb. She doesn’t know how to play. She’ll come right up to the fence to start the action and then just lie down about three feet away and watch me. It would be more fun if she played with me, especially since I don’t like her. But it’s okay as a solo game.

A couple of mornings ago I had a great game going. Zoey and her pal Brandy were egging me on. It had rained a lot the night before. The track wasn’t in the best condition. Well, one thing led to another.

Pretty soon mom came to get me. She took one look at me and slipped the lead around my neck. “Come on mud dog,” she said. “Time for a bath.” So off we went to the tub where all us mutts get washed. Mom tossed a cookie in the tub and I jumped in after it. Five minutes later, when she was done messing with me, she let me out. I think she overreacted. I don’t think a bath was required. What do you think?

Once upon a time we were blessed to have Darcy in our pack. It seems like forever ago that he came to us through Old Dog Haven. He was old and tired and needed a place to hang out.

At first me and Tess ignored him. He was fat and slow and had no interest in playing. He was afraid of his own shadow and didn’t even know when to bark.

But after a few days he decided he liked the food and warm floors. He figured out mom cooked our food and was smart enough to stick to her. Soon he became mom’s shadow. He even laid out on the cold grass so he could watch her ride the mower.

Everybody who came to the house instantly liked Darcy. He didn’t bark or jump or carry on. He looked everyone in the eye and sometimes offered a paw for inspection. When you looked deep into his eyes you could see he had a big heart. Mom said he had an old soul.

We didn’t now when Darcy was born so we gave him a new birthday – the day he came to Asherpark. We got him just before Thanksgiving in 2009. We lost him in January 2010.

You can read about Darcy by clicking on his name at the top of our home page. It’s a bittersweet story of loss, love and hope. Mom and dad cried so much the day he died. Even me and Tess were sick at heart over losing him so soon.

Just before Darcy died mom told him he would live forever in our hearts. We saved his ashes to spread at Asherpark and put some of them into a special Spirit Weight. I’ll tell you about the Spirit Weight some other time. Even though his time at Asherpark was way too short, Darcy will always be a member of our pack.

I barked about this before but it’s worth barking again. Darcy came to us after we lost Codie. He taught us how easy it is to love another dog, even one who is old and worn out. Darcy couldn’t stay long. He got called to cross the rainbow bridge. But before he left he put it in mom’s heart to take another rescue mutt through Old Dog Haven. That mutt is our beloved Jack.

See, that’s the beauty of our pack. It’s an unbroken chain of love and loss and love again. Think about it and remember Darcy.