They never ask the dog

By Peppermint Patti

JOTR Columnist

It’s not fair to blame it all on the two-leggers, Sophie.

And yet.

It’s hard for me to see how I myself could be to blame.

Was it my decision to load up a car till it couldn’t hold any more of their crapola and then put all sorts of stuff into that ugly plastic thing on top of the car and then tie a boat to the back and fill the boat up with junk and then hightail it to Canada?

What kind of idea was that?

Does anybody ever consult the dog?

What about it, Sophie, dog that you are, did anybody ever ask you if you wanted to live here or there or wherever?

Didn’t think so.

They never ask the dog.

Now, I’ll admit last year was a blast. They took me to a big pile of Canada rock with trees every which way and water beyond and more trees and rock and water.

The water I can do without, except for those rides on the vessel with the thing that groans.

Overboard motor.

How glorious!

Not that I like the noise of the overboard motor, mind you. But to ride along with your mustache blowing back against your cheeks and your snout sniffing the air.

Glory be!

Brush-butts — sniff them?

Small potatoes. Sophie.

In Canada, they have creatures that make brush-butts look like toys.

These creatures are giants next to, say, a black-and-white stink-butt or a bandito raccoon.

Up there, they have overgrown gophers with needles for fur.

That’s not an end of it, either.

Dogs that are humongous and would eat you, Sophie, black lab that you are, for breakfast.

The really big creatures are just plain huge — big black hulking lummoxes.

From the vessel that groans, running at high speed, you can smell all of these creatures.

Glory.

So it started swell, up there in Northern Ontario, and then the two-leggers — wouldn’t you know — had to spoil it.

“Why don’t we go home? We forgot this or that.”

Ask the dog?

Nary a hint.

So home we went. Back to that boring back yard with the boring brush-butts.

Five minutes at home, and wham!

Snapped my ACL.

Know what an ACL is, Sophie?

Antonomal Crusticular Lunatic, that’s what.

Part of the Caninepatoid Ligamarole.

Right there where your leg bends. You have one, too, Sophie. So do two-leggers.

Except they only have two. We have four.

How did I snap my ACL?

Tell you in a future column, Sophie.

It’s called suspense.

Secret of story-telling. Two-leggers are into it. You can lead them by the nose if you hold back the snapper to a story. They love waiting around for a story to end.

Dogs see right through it. No dog will wait patiently for somebody to draw out a story to the bitter end. But that’s two-leggers for you.

And , we’re writing for two-leggers here.

So I’ll reveal how I snapped my ACL another time.

Right now, suffice it to say, I was in what Chrysler engineers call “limp-home mode,” like one of those automatic transmissals that go haywire and leave you just short of hoofing it home.

Shank’s mare.

I felt like Shank’s mare, believe me, and I couldn’t chase brush-butts with my left hind leg dragging like a dead branch.

Enter the two-leggers — again.

How do you go back to Canada with a dog that can’t walk?

To be continued.