A few weeks ago, I was informed by the bosses that I am now on a “diet”. I confess, at the time I didn’t know what that meant. Now, I know. And I’m NOT HAPPY. Now, twice a day, rolling around the bottom of my bowl is what looks to me like a thimble full of kibble. I am not kidding…one bite and it’s gone. I am NOT FAT. I am classic “blue healer hefty”. We are big-boned and broad backed and that’s that. Pickle is fat. Which is why I can’t convince her to share a little of her food with me…she’s on a diet too. Peach, who weighs in at nothing, doesn’t get enough food to make a difference to me or Pickle.
I tell you this to explain the coffee table. Since I was a 3 mo. old pup I have found a warm security under that table. I had just arrived on the farm from California where the bosses’ daughter, Libby, had raised me from a newborn. Absolutely everything was strange and a little scary to me. But, at the end of the day, the bosses would sit with their feet up on the coffee table and watch the news or read or just look at the flames in the fireplace and that table came to represent peace and calm to me…and glorious rest.
Needless to say, I grew up. And while the coffee table is still my beloved space, that space has shrunk considerably. Can’t explain it. I used to have about an acre under there to scootch around and get comfortable. Now it takes a good ten minutes of wiggling and pushing and grunting to wedge myself into that same space…all the while the bosses yelling at me to quit jostling the table.
It’s true that when Bike In Coffee is on winter break and there aren’t a gazillion people throwing sticks and balls for me, I don’t get quite the exercise I should. But it is equally true that I put this coffee table time to good use. This is when I do my best thinking. I may look like I’m sleeping, especially when I start twitching and whimpering and the boss nudges me with a foot and says “Franco! Wake up”! But I am NOT sleeping. I do some serious pondering under that table.
I don’t always come up with a lot of answers but I have formulated some pretty good questions. Here are a few of them:
1) Why does that stupid cat get more attention than the rest of us…me, in particular?
2) Is Peach really, really dumb or is she actually really, really smart? (I will explain this question at a later date).
3) Why does everyone come sniff me when that skunk smell comes wafting into the area?
4) Why don’t little dogs have to work? Pickle is a rat terrier but when a mouse skitters across the floor all she does is glare at everyone. Shouldn’t she go after that mouse? (I have some theories about this which I’ll share with you another time).
5) Why is it acceptable for that stupid cat to lie on top of the coffee table and periodically reach down and grab me by the butt, causing me to bang my head on the underside of the table, when if I even look like I’m going to grab her I get yelled at?
6) How was I supposed to know the difference between “Franco! Go get the ball!” and “Franco! Go get the chicken!” (this one has all been sorted out now).
7) Why does everything that smells wonderful to me, stink to the bosses? For instance, dead things that I roll in. (I am told my sense of smell is roughly 50 times stronger than theirs so I think they should trust my judgement on this – am I right)?
There are approximately 947 other thoughts I’d like to share with you but they can’t all fit on this page so we’ll get to them eventually.
For now, that’s my story.
Franco The Dog
