Danny Goes For a Walk

Ahoy, all you landlubbers. It’s me, Danny the Dog. I live on a boat with my human who I’ve alluded to in the past. His name is Andrew. Now, I do know for a fact that mostly humans read my stories, but my writing is usually geared to my fellow canines. Having said that, I’ll tell what I’ve been up to the last couple of days.

Andrew and I get along for the most part. And as far as roommates go, he’s not too bad. However, as most of my dog friends will attest to, humans can be trying at times. For instance, take the situation concerning our bed. Well, on boats they’re called bunks. Don’t ask me why, it’s just something a silly human made up a long time ago.

On boats, you don’t have a regular mattress. One sleeps on foam rubber and there lies the rub between me and Andrew. I’m sure all my canine friends know where I’m going with this. But for my human readers, I’ll explain. There are very few things more enticing than foam rubber to a dog. It’s like dog catnip, if that makes any sense.

I like to sleep outside on the deck most nights—unless it’s raining. But I spend my days indoors in the air conditioning. So every morning after our walk, I go into the boat and jump up on the bed, or bunk if you will. Then I start to paw at the sheets until I uncover a corner and then I’ll rub my snoot on the foam. Man, does that feel good. Of course, Andrew freaks out, but what else can you expect from a human? He puts the sheets back in place and calls me a few choice names, but it’s worth it. And the funny thing is I only like to do it in the morning. The rest of the day, I get on and off the bed and don’t even think of that luscious foam rubber lying just under the sheets.

Now on to bicycles, or to be more precise, let’s talk about Andrew and the one and only time he took me along while he rode his bike.

Andrew is not much for physical exertion; in fact, he’s downright languid. But this morning as he was getting ready to ride to the other side of the marina (I told you he was lazy), I started barking at him to take me along. Usually when I do that, he leaves the bike and we walk. However, this morning he took me by the leash and off we went, him on the bike and me trotting alongside.

Now I know why he was hesitant to take me with him when he’s on the bike. I crisscrossed in front of him many times, and every time he had to put on the brakes so he wouldn’t run into me. And when I wasn’t doing that, I’d stop to smell an especially intoxicating scent, almost pulling him off the bike. When we got home, he told me that was my last time accompanying him while he rode the bicycle. But that’s okay. It was just a training exercise; I caused him all that grief on purpose and he responded as I knew he would. I much prefer walking. I can take my time sniffing, and every once in a while I turn up a treasure, like an old chicken bone. Andrew won’t let me eat them, but I get a crunch or two in before he takes them away.

That’s about it for now. My favorite television show is about to start—old reruns of Lassie in black and white. They don’t make shows like that anymore.