“The Fine Print”, by M.H. Schrader
Will Lincoln and Kennedy Live?
Is
Mr. Lincoln dead? That is the question
I keep asking myself. You see, I really
don’t know. I’ll just have to wait and
see if Mr. Lincoln survives this latest assassination attempt. I am confident, but...
I
know what you’re probably thinking--this Schrader guy is either really stupid
or has completely lost his grip on reality.
After all, everyone knows that Mr. Lincoln died in 1865.
Well---I’ll
admit to the stupidity (and I’ve never had a grip on reality). You see, it is probably because of my own
stupidity that I am concerned for the health and well being of Mr. Lincoln. And of John F. Kennedy, too. Up until a week
or so ago, they were both thriving nicely in my backyard, and although Lincoln
may be dead, JFK is still full of life (of course, JFK’s existence has not been
threatened--yet).
JFK
is lucky--my dog doesn’t like him as much as Mr. Lincoln. And in my backyard, that is a key factor in
survival. Poor Mr. Lincoln, on the
other hand, has been dug up (and replanted) and now chewed up. My dog is a dog that revels in his
dogness--he loves to chew and dig.
Both
Mrs. Schrader and I blame ourselves for what happened to Mr. Lincoln--we should
have never taken our dog out of the country.
We have read that when a dog does not get enough exercise, he begins to
misbehave by chewing and digging. The
problem is, our dog does not have enough room to get the proper amount of
exercise--our yard is just too small.
So we believe that this lack of space is the reason why he chews up
everything.
Now
don’t get me wrong--Wobbles is not a bad dog.
In fact, he is really pretty well behaved, given the circumstances. Australian Shepherds are excellent range
dogs. Our dog does not have a range,
just an itty bitty city lot, which of course makes him hyper, as he doesn’t
really have any way to burn up all of his energy.
I
like to kid my wife about her concerns about Wobbles when she first got him as
a pup from one of the neighbors--she kept him in the garage because she was
afraid an owl might get him. Now she’s
afraid of the opposite. After all, he
has caught more birds than all of our cats combined, and at one time we had
eight of them!
Australian
Shepherds have tremendous leaping abilities.
My in-laws have a Blue Healer (a type of Australian Shepherd) who used
to constantly leap the fence in their backyard. It really wasn’t until they bought a spread in the country and
visited it on the weekends that their dog began to settle down. What a difference some room makes! He went from hyper to mellow. With all that running, he’s just too worn
out to do much of anything else.
We
have decided, then, that what Wobbles needs is some room, that it is not right
to keep him cooped up in an itty bitty yard.
And therein lies the problem--we don’t own any real estate EXCEPT a
little city lot.
One
suggestion was the humane society.
While I have nothing against the Humane Society, I could not in my heart
have my pet of three years subjected to living in a small cage, even if only
for a few weeks. I just find that,
well, inhumane, and Wobbles deserves better.
So,
until we can find Wobbles a good home, we have decided to adapt our
lifestyle. Since it is foolish to let a
dog chew up things of value, we have taken the same approach we do with the
children--we moved everything of value out of harms way.
It
is fortunate that we have a rather large front porch, as front porches are
great for storage. We have moved our
lawn furniture onto the front porch.
And much to my parents’ chagrin, I have moved my barbecue pit onto the
front porch, too. (Since my knee
injury, I am no longer capable of outrunning a forty pound dog while carrying a
tray of pork steaks.) Which really
works out well, because I have better lighting in the front of my house than in
the back, and as I have this bad tendency to wait until about six thirty or so
to start barbecuing, it usually gets dark before I get finished. Thus, I either must use a flashlight to see
what I am doing or I just guess and hope I’m not too surprised with my cooking
when I get inside.
The
decorative lights I have removed from the back yard. Of course, I blame my own stupidity for losing three of the six I
had to the dog. You would think that
after he chewed up the first one I would have recognized that he liked to chew
on the lights and would have relocated them.
You would think. But instead, I
spend an hour or so putting the remaining five back in place and hoping (rather
stupidly, it turns out) that a dog can go against his own nature and not chew
on what he like to chew on. Go
figure. I don’t expect that out of
people (the going against their inherent nature part, that is, although I do
know some who will chew, too), so why would I expect it out of a dog? Perhaps I’ve watched 101 Dalmatians a tad too many times. Hello! It’s just a
cartoon! Anybody home?!
In
all honesty, even without a forty-pound dog in the back yard, I really don’t
know how much we could really enjoy it in its present state. We have discovered that our yard must be the
Disney World for mosquitoes. It’s only
May, and the bites are starting. In
mass.
As
for Mr. Lincoln and John F. Kennedy?
Well, rosebushes can always be replaced.