Let Me Tell You About My Operation (As Narrated by Boomer)
Hello, again. This is Boomer back with you. I’m the 9 year-old Pit Lab in the nearby picture, and the human with me is one of the people I take care of day and night. You recall, I’m sure, that I wrote two articles in The Times Examiner last year, in which I told you about how I watch over both of my humans (named Grampa and Gramma), and about my daily adventures with them. I also wrote about some of my Grampa’s observations about politics and politicians, although the more I try to understand what they are, the more confused I get. I often hear my humans talking about politics and politicians, and usually not in very flattering terms. If they’re confused and disappointed with these politics and politician things, you can understand why I’m puzzled as to why my humans and their families put up with such confusion. Humans are so difficult to understand, at times. Why can’t they be straightforward and loyal like we dogs are?
I told you I wrote two articles last year. Actually I had to narrate my thoughts to my Grampa in “dog” (which he understands pretty well), and he put my words into your language on something he calls a computer. Sadly, I can’t use this computer thing because I can’t get my paw fingers to work on those key thingies that my Grampa hits to form my words. I don’t think it’s fair of humans to deny my kind an opportunity to use their own computers. I suspect they’re too afraid of what we might write about them. But I digress.
I’m going to update you on my own political campaign to be elected as “Dog-In-Chief,’ but before I do that I want to tell you about “My Operation.” Now that it’s over it doesn’t seem all that big a deal, but I had to endure that torture, and the experience wasn’t very pleasant, I assure you.
A few months ago a little pimple started to grow on the outside of my tummy, and it got bigger every month, until it looked like a small white bean. I didn’t think anything of it, but my humans got all agitated, eventually, and I began to hear them talking about ‘taking me to the vet.’
Now I do know what that means, and believe me, this vet place is no where I’d choose to be, because it’s a place of dog torture, where they stick needles into you, poke and prod you in your ‘sensitive places’ (if you know what I mean), and in general they do everything they can to make the experience as miserable as possible.
Well, one day a few weeks ago, my Grampa said to me, “Let’s go for a ride.” Now ‘rides’ in his car are my favorite ways of watching over my humans, plus I do like to stick my head out of the window and let the wind blow through my whiskers and flap my ears. My Grampa was sneaky that day, because he didn’t tell me we were going to the dreaded “vet,” but that’s where we ended up. I got all nervous as we went into the building, and I gave my Grampa my “evil eye” look, because he had ‘tricked’ me into coming to this torture place with him.
A few minutes later he was hugging me, telling me to “be brave,” and that he would be back for me later in the day. Easy for him to tell me to be brave, because he was getting out of that horrid place as fast as he could, leaving me behind to face my fate.
As these strange humans put me in a big cage, I noticed a few other dogs, and even a couple of those stupid cats I despise, in cages nearby. I assumed they were going to be tortured also. A little later they took me out of my cage and stabbed me with a needle, and that’s all I remember until I woke up a few hours later, back in my cage. My tummy was a little sore, because that big white pimple thing was gone. I was very dizzy and drowsy, and I didn’t even try to Stand UP - I watched as one of those strange humans put another dog into 21 Cage near me. He was asleep, and he never did wake up to tell me how he had been tortured.
Later that day, as the bright thing in the sky was leaving, my Grampa returned and took me back to his car. I sure was glad to see him, even if it was his fault that I had been tortured. After all, what had I done to deserve that treatment? Hmmmm? Nothing, I assure you. I stuck my head out of the window on our trip home, but I was so woozy that I didn’t even bark at other cars. I went into my living room and flopped down on the floor, and didn’t move for hours. Well, that horrible experience is behind me, now, and I’ve forgiven my Grampa for tricking me. My tummy boo-boo is all healed, (the pimple was ‘non-malignant) and I’m back to my routine of eating, going for walks, chasing squirrels and stupid cats, sleeping, howling at train whistles, sleeping, going for a walk before it gets too dark, having another snack, and finally hopping up onto the nest where I sleep with my humans. My days are busy and rewarding, but I want to do more. So that’s when my campaign for “Dog-In-Chief” came to my mind a few months ago.
I mentioned last time that my humans talk a lot about something they call “government”, and what it should and should not do. I concluded then that this ‘government’ thing is just a really big pack of Pit Bulls, Dobermans, and Chihuahuas who love to bully all the other packs in this town into believing that they are smarter and meaner than everyone else. I’ve added German Shepherds to that list, because during my campaigning for “Dog-In-Chief” I ran into several of them who tried to ‘bully’ me into retreating from my campaign. There were two Doberman’s with them, so I’m sure they were from that big government pack.
I decided to run for “Dog-In-Chief” after I heard my humans complaining constantly about their own Human-In-Chief, someone called Obama. They said that this Obama fellow was a terrible Chief and that the government was in a bad mess because of him. So naturally I concluded that I could do a better job of running this ‘government’ thing than their Obama was doing. I knew I had to find a Head Dog to run my campaign, but that’s not as easy as I thought it would be. One dog across the street, a big black Lab-rador, just laughed and snorted at me when I asked her to be my HD, and informed me that she, like her human, was a Democrat, had always been a ‘Democrat,’ and would never support a mongrel “mixed breed” like me. She snapped at me and I told my Grampa to take me back home.
Next I talked to an Australian Shepherd nearby, and asked him to become my HD for my campaign. But he was too young and totally inexperienced, I decided. Besides, I heard from “confidential sources” that he couldn’t provide 100% proof that he had been born in my country, so I didn’t want to campaign with a dog that had a questionable birth certificate. I finally selected an American Bulldog named Charlie who lives down the street. My Grampa and I watched him on a hot day as he picked up his big plastic wading pool, emptied the water out of it, tilted and turned it until he had managed to get it into his human’s den, to enjoy the shade. (Bulldogs sweat a lot, and they love shade, which made sense to me.) He agreed to be my HD. I made a good choice.
We’ve been visiting lots of places where my dog voters congregate, and the reaction to my campaign has been positive. But recently at a “dog park” a big pack of Dobermans and German Shepherds, led by two yappy Chihuahuas, came up to me and told me that they were from “the government,” and would support my campaign if I would allow them to run it, and if I did what they wanted me to do. The first thing I noticed is that some of them had on neck scarves that said, “Obama 2012,” which immediately made me suspicious of their motives, for I knew that any pack that was ‘for’ Obama was really ‘bad news,’ and was certainly not a pack whose support and advice I wanted.
I told them to ‘leave my park,’ because I only wanted the help and votes of ‘patriotic’ dogs like my HD and me. I realized I had made a big mistake when they started growling and snapping at me. Well, I sure was outnumbered, and my human was far from me. But to my rescue came my big American bulldog friend, Charlie, barking and snarling and showing his teeth to those government dogs, who all took off yelping and whining. I helped Charlie chase them all back to their masters, who began to yell at us and at my human. As we both rejoined our humans, I concluded that those humans were probably all Democrats, just like their stupid dogs.
Well, that pretty much updates you on my campaign, so far. The next time I’ll let you know how I’m doing. I just hope that I can stay out of that horrible place of torture in the meantime. You’1l have to excuse me, now, because I see one of those stupid cats outside, and I’ve got to scare him away with my loud barks. I only wish my human would let me get outside at that cat. I’d show him a thing or two.
