Old Guys, Dogs and Cats

OLD GUYS, DOGS AND CATS by Jim Drummond A few weeks ago, one member of the old guy g roup had to put his dog down. He was

Many in the group couldn’t commented, “And he was the remember much about our friend’s second smartest dog I ever owned. dog. We generally knew that it was a mixed breed mongrel that acted tough when any of us stopped by Dog could fetch a ball, and shake hands, and roll over, and play dead, and open the refrigerator to get me to trade tools in the garage. It was a dog that barked a lot. Somebody asked our mourning friend, “Remind me of your dog’s name?”

Our despondent group member responded, “I just called him Dog. I tried a few other names on him when he was young, but he mostly liked to be called Dog.” Somebody questioned, “Don’t you have a horse named Horse?” a beer. He was really talented.”

ing to miss Dog.” One member of our group asked, “How old was Dog?” a bit tear y eyed about losing a Fifteen years old, came the good friend. T hat caused the answer. A few of us silently did the rest of us at the old guy wadog year conversion math. Fifteen terhole to become sad as well. dog years is equivalent to 89 huMost old guys have owned at man years. We all agreed that Dog least one good dog and had had lived a long and full life as far a notion about what he was as dog lives go. feeling. “Dog had a good life,” our friend

“Yes,” was the response, “He was a hundred. He could understand Dog’s best friend. Horse is sure goanything said in English and

Somebody in the group asked, “If Dog was your second smartest dog, what dog did you own that was brighter?”

The first old guy responded, “That was Max. He was as smart as a human. He could do all the normal dog tricks and a whole lot more. Max could herd sheep and keep a count of them up to

even knew a bit of Spanish. If we didn’t want him to know what we were saying we had to spell out the words. Spelling wasn’t one of his strong points. Max could even answer the telephone. When telemarketers called, we would have him answer and bark into the handset. In his later years he even learned to hum a few bars of the Star Spangled Banner. He was quite patriotic.”

Old guys don’t like to be oneupped when it comes to dogs, so one of our old guy bunch commented, “I once had a smart dog. He could read a newspaper and followed small cap stock prices.”

Another of the group said, “Long ago I had a dog that could tune up a car.”

A third remarked, “I used to have a dog that could operate a table saw or do small electrical projects.”

Old guy dog memories inflate as the years go by.

Somebody then asked, “Are you going to get another dog?” “I don’t think so,” Dog’s owner responded. “We still have a cat and that will have to do.”

Somebody groaned. Another in the group shook his head. Most old guys don’t have much appreciation of cats.

One old fellow asked, “After owning dogs, how are you going to endure only a cat that can’t perform the tricks that Dog could do?”

Several of us nodded our heads at that question. The first old guy responded defensively. “Actually, it’s my wife’s cat and none of my doing,” he said. “In the second place, it’s a fairly intelligent cat as far as cats go.”

Somebody asked, “If it’s so bright, what can it do?”

“Well,” was the response. “If you rattle a sack of Kitty Crumpets around meal time it will come running, and when you pull a vacuum out of the closet it will leave the room, and it even sits next to me and purrs while I’m watching a football game. It’s a clever cat.”

Somebody finally blurted, “C’mon, what good is a cat?”

“Frankly, we don’t have many mice in the house,” was the response.

Before we left the waterhole, a few of us made a wager. Several of us bet that if a cat can’t be trained to shake hands, or herd sheep, or get a beer out of the refrigerator, that our old guy friend will ultimately end up with another dog.

Jim Drummond is a new contributor to the Prime section. Look for more of his witty repartee in upcoming editions of Prime.