Hardly Working Dogs – By Buddy

Jul 1, 2016

Hi there! It’s Big Smart Buddy Dog! Writin’ the Blog! And I’m rhyming like a… like a… Dog.

I’m not good at rhyming.

Do you like that picture of me? I love my collar. Liana brought it home especially for me when she went to visit some place south of Massachusetts called Kenya. Don and Liana like my collar so much they might bring back more! It must be very far away because Liana was gone for a super-long time.

I don’t know about Kenya, but there have been a lot of people around Boothbay Harbor lately. I don’t know why. They walk all over the place. Even the middle of the road! Everybody knows you shouldn’t walk in the middle of the road. Whenever someone does, Don gets really angry. If you are a dog, he will yell at you to get back in the yard. If you are a person, he says bad words under his breath while he’s driving. You shouldn’t walk in the road!

Then one day there was this person pulled up in his car and came into the parking spot to say hi to us. He smelled funny (Editor’s Note: Alcohol), and he kept patting us roughly. When he tried to get Auggie in his car, Auggie barked and barked and barked! Even I felt like barking. When Don poked his head back out to check on us, the person was driving away pretty fast!

So this year Don put a small fence by the road. People will say to Don, “You don’t really expect that 2ft fence to keep your dogs in the driveway, do you?” And Don will say – “No, but I expect the 2ft fence to keep YOU out of the driveway.” Then the people laugh a lot and so does Don. I don’t get it. But as long as people are happy, I am happy.

And one time all us 4 Good Dogs were out back on our beds enjoying some sunshine when an Old Man came over and said, “What a bunch of Lazy Dogs.” Can you believe it? LAZY?!?!? We most certainly are NOT lazy! I was really angry! And get this – THE OLD MAN WAS WALKING IN THE ROAD! Don would be really angry! He hates people walking in the road.

That Old Man was so WRONG! We do so much around the shop. All morning long we were getting our bellies scratched, testing treats for deliciousness, and of course we’d had the full hour of swimming and fetching earlier that day. And we do marketing! Don even said that I sold a bunch of wine barrel dog beds when I crawled my achy, old, bones into one and all the people laughed because I looked so handsome. Let’s see The Old Man who called us lazy do that!

And that’s only the tip of the ice cube. We dogs model leashes and raincoats, we protect all those yummy treats from other dogs, we make sure customers have had their fill of Labrador butt-rubbing, and sometimes we have to demonstrate Fish Sticks (Editors Note: A Polka Dog Cod Skin) for the nice people. It’s very hard to do. Don will take a Fish Stick and break it into four pieces. Then he makes us all sit. Then he gives us all one. Those Fish Sticks sure are good!

And if we were truly lazy, who would greet the dog food delivery people? There’s also the grass out back that gets unruly unless us dogs chomp it down. And we do our best to mop up all the treats that the fussy dogs leave on the floor of the shop. As Don says, “Having 4 Labrador Retrievers means never having to clean food off the floor.” Amen, Don. Amen.

So people, before you label a situation with ugly words, please take the time to understand all things involved in that situation. And stay safe, people. Stay out of the road!

Thanks for reading this far.

— Big Smart Buddy Dog