Offing and all that

Patti by Pat Beck 2008By Peppermint Patti

JOTR Columnist

Can’t live with em, can’t live without em.

Right, Sophie?

One way or another, we’re stuck with our two-leggers.

For better or for worse.

But dog, there are two-leggers and then there are two-leggers.

Know what I mean?

Take my female tw0-legger, just as a for instance.

Without her, I’d still be in the Holiday Inn for mongrels where they had me registered as a “stray.”

It was my female two-legger who picked me out.

She saw something in me.

Well, no point being modest here, since it’s between us two and the chain-link, but of COURSE she saw my potential.

Smart cookie, that two-legger. Knew breeding when she saw it. Didn’t need kennel papers to know.

That’s a step up from my first owners, who paid the big price for me at the pet store and then got bent out of shape when I mangled their wastebasket. Well, I was after the bone from the beef roast, you know the kind, absolutely delectable, especially when they’re three days old. Such a smell! Impossible to resist.

Oh, Sophie, they said some awful, unretractable things then. Things about my personality as being “incorrable” and “untrainworthy” and not getting a brain till I’m two and how it was high time to “off” me.

Advice to two-legged dog owners: Don’t mention “offing” — you know, termination with extreme malice aforethought — in front of a dog and then stupidly leave the yard gate open.

Auf wiederbite, mes amis.

What, Sophie?

Don’t mix my lingos?

Hey, dog, I’ll masticate whatever words I like.

Hold on!

Tarnation, Sophie, there’s a flagtail on a low branch mocking both of us. Pay no attention, he’s out of reach.

Dog, but I’d like a bite out of his butt.

Hold on, I’m gonna race over there and yap him into the topyards.

Hoo-eee! Did ya see that, Sophie? Sent him hiking to the topgallants, I did!

Now, where was I?

Oh, yeah, two-leggers.

Can’t very well live without them. They pay the vet bills.

But it can sure be hard living with them.

Know what I mean?

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