Danny’s Affinities

Today I want to talk about two of my most favorite things in the world. First, I would like to introduce myself to anyone who may be new to these dispatches that I send out from my boat. I’m Danny the Dog. I live on a boat with my human, Andrew. We coexist like the old USSR and the USA coexisted during the cold war. He’s okay for a human.

So, now down to business.

I want to tell you about my love of hot dogs. Every morning when I take Andrew out for his walk, after we come back, he’ll give me a hot dog. This is something new in our relationship, but I’m not complaining. The thing is that Andrew is so malleable I have conned him into giving a second hot dog.

Allow me to explain. Earlier I wrote about how I had trained him, but I neglected to tell of how I now have it down to single bark commands. The way it works is that I’ll bark once if I want Andrew to do something for me. If he doesn’t hop to within thirty seconds, I bark again, just once. That usually does it. I seldom have to bark a third time. So after I finish my morning hot dog, I give the command and Andrew brings me another one. I always try for a third hot dog, but Andrew isn’t that well trained yet.

Now to my next great joy, chasing anything with wheels on it. Don’t you just love to bark at and chase cars? Well, I do. I must admit, I don’t always do it, but when I do, I do it with a vengeance. Once Andrew had me tied to a tree while he was communing with nature or whatever the hell he does when he’s around trees (I use trees for a completely different reason). We were behind this building and a big truck, an eighteen-wheeler, came by. I couldn’t resist, I went after it full force. But wouldn’t you know it? The damn leash stopped me two feet from the damn truck! The driver slammed on his brakes and had a pained look on his face, so it wasn’t all for naught.

The last thing I want to tell you about is the time I bounced off of Beth’s wheel. Somehow I connived to get off the leash Andrew insist I wear, and as he was distracted trying to entice a female onto our boat, Beth, our neighbor, came by in her truck. It was too good to pass up and I tore out after the offending vehicle. Well, I’m embarrassed to say so, but I misjudged my trajectory and hit the front wheel. Poor Beth thought she had run over me. Andrew had a heart attack. And I just stood there with a grin on my face. After all, when Beth stopped, I had won. I captured the truck.