Push-Ups: The Wonders of Barking

I'd like to get more regular with this here blog. Something to shoot for, I suppose. Which, by the way, is EXACTLY what Hank the Wonder Pup is sure to become if he continues to exercise his spirited barking in his back yard haven. The charm of those satin bat ears and all that pearly white handsomeness will only protect him so far before a neighbor realizes how easy it really is to take aim and shoot with that rusty shotgun buried in the back of the coat closet. (I, however, do not have either a coat closet or a shotgun. Plenty of items with rust, though.) I don't even know what the object of his barking IS most of the time. Initially, he discovered his lung capacity in direct response to the serenades of other dogs in the Jamison 'hood. Then, there were those odd times throughout the day when he patrolled the windows of his kitchen kingdom, lightly padding from back door to west window to north window, and shouted at birds and shadows and quite possibly . . . um, er . . . moths? Now, Hank perches in the Bermuda grass in that charming sideways pose he has, one of his lanky pup legs tucked under his rump and the other shooting off to the east, and bays away at the distance for no apparent reason other than the sheer exhilaration of mouthing off. (He's definitely related to Zachary.)

Sigh-h! Those ears. That fur. His sad, sad eyes!

While Hank's newfound love of howling seems to keep him entertained, I'm fairly certain that most human beings within earshot are not thinking, "Oh, how wonderful, he's safely occupied while I mop the floor and check my e-mail!" Because outside of my own sweet and ornery puppy, even I -- the one capable of multitudes of circumspect thought and able to leap over latitude-for-others in a single bound -- don't entertain such imaginings with other folk's dogs. (Save for the black Cocker spaniel of indeterminate age who patrols the fence line of the house behind ours: he can't see and barely hears! What other pleasure in expression has he, aside from copious amounts of sniffing the same areas over and over and over again, if not that of oration?) Whether they be wee pert yappers or barrel-chested barkers, the repetitive sound grates on the nerves after a few minutes or so (thus beating out most modern pop songs) And interrupts naps. Irritates those with PMS. Damages the sound barrier. Not to mention contributes to the inexplicable rise in bullet holes which suddenly seem to appear around that makeshift side fence where certain white pups (who have no idea they are about to have their unfurling male aggression halted on Monday at 11AM) like to lie in repose and chat with the wind!

When Hank's not barking, he's cornering the cat.

The irony in all of this is that I'm trying to teach Hank the Wonder Pup to bark on command. Much as we did with our senior gal, Miss Panda. I know she didn't emerge from her mother's crowded womb knowing how to SPEAK and wait patiently for her crunchy treat, but for the life of me, I can not recall how she learned this simple trick. What I do remember, however, is using the garden hose sprayer to break both Panda and Rosie (our little mop of a dog who died of Addison's disease -- which is what President Kennedy suffered from -- over ten years ago) of their obnoxious noise making. I must admit that I found that entire episode rather amusing; for awhile after that, anytime I entered the back yard to water the garden, both animals would bow their heads, tuck tails, and run into the dog house, before peeking out to check if the coast was clear. Hilarious!

At trying moments like these, I'm sure Panda would LIKE to bark!

Hmmm. Another entry about a girl (at least on the inside when she sets her eyes on one particular lab-mix hound who has a penchant for crunching on empty plastic water bottles -- yet another form of recycling) and her dog. There are actually three children and a husband in the household. And I interact both lovingly and regularly with them. They even feature prominently in my blog. Ju-u-st not quite as often as Hank. He is, after all, a Wonder Pup! He holds my heart in his perpetually moist jowls . . . not a very pretty mental image, is it? But love can be messy.