The truth about squirrels:

Above, Bella is talking with squirrels:

Humans are always laughing at us dogs because we spend a lot of time in the back yard chasing squirrels. Humans don’t understand the depth of the interaction and friendship that exists between dogs and squirrels. We don’t chase squirrels because we want to catch them. We chase them because squirrels always know the latest jokes. That chatter you hear is really the latest jokes that are making the rounds of the elm trees. Their jokes are good, but squirrels have a pretty dry sense of humor. They lose a lot in translation from dog to human which is why we never share the stories with our human companions.

Yesterday a squirrel told me a joke about a French poodle, a German Shepherd and a Golden Retriever, who all went into a pet shop. The manager asked them what they wanted.

The Poodle said he wanted some rawhide chew toys to chew on. The manager gave him two chew toys and said “That will be $4.98 please.” The Poodle scratched himself and thought about it for a while and finally admitted that he did not have any money. So the manager put the toys back on the shelf.

The store manager turned to the German Shepherd and asked him what he wanted. He barked “I think I will have two of the large cans of tennis balls, I always run out of tennis balls”. The store manager put two cans of tennis balls in a sack and said, “That will be $12.98 please.” The German Shepherd panted twice and then hung his head, “I don’t have any money.” The store manager put the tennis balls back on the shelf. The German Shepherd turned to his two friends and barked “We had better go, we can’t pay for things here, we don’t have any money.”

With that the three walked out the door. Outside the Golden Retriever told his two friends “Wait here a moment”. Then he went back into the store alone. A few minutes later he came out of the store carrying a bag. In the bag were two rawhide chew toys for the French Poodle, two cans of tennis balls for the German Shepherd, and two stuffed duck toys.

“How did you pay for these things,” asked the Poodle?

“I just whipped out my Golden American Express card,” replied the Golden Retriever,

“How did you get that,” asked the Poodle?

“My human got it for me the first time we went hunting. He stopped in a bar down the street, climbed up on a tall stool, handed me a credit card, pointed to the market down the street and said ‘Fetch!’ Ever since, we have never gone home without two ducks.”

I suppose this joke lost something in translation, you had to be there, the squirrels have such a great delivery style. They laugh so hard at their own jokes that we have to bark along just to be polite. Then they challenge us to a race, and off we go, they run down the top of the fence and we run along jumping up to show them we are faster than they are. They do cheat, all their races begin and end up a tree and they tease us because we never make it to the finish line.

That is the truth about squirrels.

Mogley G. Retriever