| Get Up Dad, Get Up! |
| Written by Sailor the Dog |
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Walkin' Man, do I LOVE walkin'. It's like reading a hundred newspapers in the space of twenty blocks. I can find out everything I want to know about my neighborhood in a twenty minute spin. That Molly, she's a real hottie. Yup, she was by her not long ago. Riley and the Fox made the papers. Of course they do every morning. That Fox just loves to give Riley the tease; she comes up behind him then shoots away just as he turns. Mostly I walk with my Mom and Fuzzy. Everybody in the neighborhood points and laughs, 'cause Fuzzy has got a way of getting their attention. The first thing we always do, walkin' with Mom, is that she tries to get me to be a Good Boy! I've got things to do, pals to meet up with; I can't be wasting my time on this Good Boy stuff. My Mom, on the other hand, is pretty darned insistent. She pulls and tugs and turns me around. "Be Good," she says, "Be a Good Boy!" Ok, I wanna. I wanna be a Good Boy, but it's just so darned hard. When the neigbor kids come running out of their houses, they want to PLAY! No body is yelling at them to Be Good! So I just try to play along. They come running, and I go jumping and then... Wait a second, is that Kelsey in the newspaper? OK, so I have a bit of an attention span problem. Kelsey is all right, but that guy Bogey that hangs out with her is a nasty one sometimes. He just gets so bossy I can't stand it. I love to carry Fuzzy, 'cept when something really interesting comes along. I just drop old Fuzzy out of my life, and figure I can pick him up on the rebound. Mom doesn't approve. She picks Fuzzy up off the ground and just carries him herself for a while. At least until I get bored and decide to carry him again. That usually happens when people pass by in their cars. For some reason I don't really understand, they just seem to LOVE it when I'm carryin' Fuzzy. Hey, if it'll get me a little attention, I'll carry him all day. This morning I went walkin' with my Dad. He lets me spend more time on the newspaper and walks faster than Mom. And he never, ever, ok HARDLY never, ever talks about me being a Good Boy. Only thing about Dad is he won't carry Fuzzy very much. If I drop old Fuzzy on the ground, Dad just picks him up and gives him right back. "You take Fuzzy," he says. "I'm not gonna carry him." Sometimes I just tease him by dropping Fuzzy again and again... then I'll run fast and make him catch me. I wish I didn't this morning, though... I dropped Fuzzy and Dad picked it up. "Take Fuzzy," he said. Nope, I thought, so I took off, and Dad came a'running too. 'Spose I should tell you that Dad is a little bigger than he should be. He suddenly looked really pale and just stopped. Next thing I know Dad's on the ground. "Get Up Dad, Get Up!" I tried to tell him as loud as I could. "Riley" I yelled. "Molly!, Bogey!, Kelsey!, Duke! Yapper!" I yelled as loud as I could, but nobody came to help, and Dad would NOT get up. "Get Up Dad, Get Up!" A man came running out of his house and looked at my Dad. Then he looked at me. "Where do you live?" the man said. "Right Over There!" I yelled to him, but he didn't seem to understand. He looked in my Dad's pockets and came up empty. Then he looked at me. He stared at me, and he started putting his hand to my throat. "Get Away!" I yelled at him. I wanted to run away, but I couldn't leave my Dad. He grabbed me by the collar, and looked very closely at my Big Bone Tag. Then he called a number on his little pocket telephone. The firemen came, and Dad is all right. Tomorrow, I'm going to be a Good Boy! Tomorrow, I'm going to be the Best Dog in the Neighborhood! |