Retrieving 101

Can I help it if I am an overachiever? Can I help it if I do everything better than others? Humans apparently don't like or appreciate dogs with a high IQ. Humans don't like dogs with manners.

When I was a little puppy, enrolled in Retrieving 101 at Dog U, they told us never to go to greet a human without your prize, a prize is the object to be retrieved. It is really very simply. I am a Golden Retriever, we retrieve, it's our job. So why do humans have a hard time with this concept? Did they skip this course at Human U? I never walk around without a prize in my mouth, and remembering my course work at Dog U, I never greet a guest without a prize to hand over. I received an "A+" in retrieving! Every morning I go out the front door, run down the driveway and pick up the morning paper, then bring it in, hand it over to the human as a morning gift, for him to read. He loves my fetching.

My human became very upset today when I greeted a guest at the door by giving him a gift. Since there were no stuffed ducks handy, no paper on the driveway, no tennis balls by the door, I picked up one of the potted plants and gave it to our guest. He seemed to be real happy to have it. he did not even mind that all the stuffing fell out of the pot. But my resident human sure was mad. He even brought out that evil sounding machine and took it all over the floor. If you ask me (which humans seldom do), my greeting at the door with a gift was a lot better greeting than the human greeting a guest with a vacuum cleaner. Using an evil machine to greet guests it is a wonder anyone stops by to visit.

Humans, you can't please them but our job is to try. So we dogs labor on, doing the best we can with their limited ability to reason like we do.

We have an appointment to take Snickers to meet a prospective Forever Home at 3:00 today. The humans are going to brush him and make him look good. He is practicing his loudest and meanest grrrr, he heard that they have coyotes there and part of his job is to scare them off. He wants to make a good first impression. Their home is on a huge park, lots of space to run, lots of wild things to sniff. There is even a lake in the park so we can play when summer comes. It is sounding better and better, Snickers is getting excited.

Mogley G. Retriever