Lucky Dog Day

My friend Kate told me a neat story the other day. I guess she needed a good dog to confide in. When she was a child, she experienced a broken home. Like most children she loved both parents and could not understand why they did not love each other anymore. In fact, she had never heard her parents fuss; not even once. They seemed like the ideal mom and dad. They went to church. They laughed. They had a wonderful home. So, it will always be a mystery, she said, why they didn't stay together. Now she knows that some adults are good at keeping secrets.

From the day her dad left, the world just seemed to stop. Her mom started continually complaining about things; no money, a lousy job, how much noise her and her sister made...just about everything. She remembers frequently going into her sister's room after her mom had gone to bed. They would hug and whisper about how they missed their old life and together, cry themselves to sleep. That was life. For a long time.

But thank goodness life changes, she said. She's not sure why she remembers the day so clearly, maybe it was the misty, almost frozen rain. The fact that school had just been canceled and that she was already up and ready with nowhere to go probably helped. She remembers the heavy oversized sweater she had on....and even the day, Tuesday.

There was a faint, but persistent knock on the door; she opened it and a dripping, shivering, humped over little man with a crumpled hat, was leaning on a crutch before her. "Hi, little Miss. I just stopped by to say..." He paused, then almost as if he had been shocked by electricity, blurted out, "It's your Luck Dog Day!" Then he held out his free arm's palm. There was something in it. He urgently gestured for her to take the little plastic figure. Though now, as a mother herself, she would know better than to let her children open the door to a stranger, and she would most certainly tell them to never hold out their own hand to someone they did not know. But she did, back then. Fortunately no harm was done, rather,the little man dropped the piece of plastic into her hand, and, as if he had just dropped a live grenade, hobbled down the walkway as fast as his rickety crutch would allow.

As she closed the door, she looked down at the little toy dog. Not more than 3 inches long; it looked like another real life dog (or child) had chewed part of it's tail off. What did he say? Lucky Dog Day...that's silly. As she examined the worn out puppy closer she could see that someone had written on it's smooth belly, "Rover". Lucky Dog Day, yeah, right? I haven't felt lucky in a long, long time. (More to come)

There's Always Someone Bigger than You!

One of my favorite 'net pals is a wise old sea dog named Weatherbee. "Bee", as I call him, is a mascot on one of the oldest family run fishing boats in Newport, RI.

One day while we were marking our spots on the web, we sniffed out the old adage that old dogs have a hard time learning new tricks. Bee offered that it was because we are innately creatures of instinct and habit. "Since we have this tendency, we ought to make sure we pick out the very best habits a MBF can learn," he said, "and know that there are times when even Big Dogs with the best habits need to be Humble enough to make one more change."

He told me I ought to get my paws on Covey's Seven Habits of Effective Canines, and look up the quote I'm sharing with you today:

"Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.

Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”

“Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out.

Lookout replied, “Steady, captain, “ which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.

The captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship. We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.”

Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.”

The captain said, “Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees.”

“I'm a seaman second class,” came the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees.”

By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, “Send, I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.”

Back came the flashing light, “I'm a lighthouse.”

We changed course.”1

Thanks for sharing that wisdom, Old Bee. Though I'm bigger than most dogs, even I have to watch out for trucks and buses.

WooF! - MBF Sam

1
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey, Franklin Covey Co.

New Friend

Miss me? I haven't had much to bark about lately, and rather than be barking up the wrong tree I decided to take a nap.

I found a new friend today. He likes too hike. I like to walk, so we have that in common. Here's a link to his blog: www.hikingsober.blogspot.com

I like his name. Its almost Dog. Just need to leave u out. He likes to hike, too. He like to talk politics.

I made this comment on his blog:

Doug. woof woof. America has gone to the dogs. Thankfully I'm a dog. Don't believe me? Four recent Biggest box office movies were dog movies:
Barley (or was that Marley) and Me
the Chiwawa movie
Hotel California Dogs
and That white cartoon dog.
but they still haven't made one better than Turners Hooch.