Glib Canines and Guilty Consciences

I promised you a couple of stories about animals who are smarter than their owners, so here you go. Now, these "stories" could actually be told as longer jokes (well, one is obviously a joke but I'll let you, astute reader, decide which one), but I think of them as just ... well, funny stories! Stories which, of course, beg for a conclusion to be drawn! That's where I come in, conclusion-drawing-pencil at the ready, but you of course are free to draw your own. I won't stop you.

A man was taking a walk one day, just going down the sidewalk, whistling or what have you, when he noticed a sign in the yard of a small, unimpressive house. The sign held only three words and one digit, but its message stopped the man in his tracks: "Talking Dog 4 Sale." He stared at the sign for a while, then, although he had no need for a dog, talking or otherwise, he decided to investigate. He approached the house and knocked on the door. Presently he heard steps, and what sounded like a muted bark. The door opened. There before him stood a heavyset man wearing blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. A medium-sized, nondescript hound sat beside him.

The visitor stared, then stammered. "Uhm ... I was just wondering about your sign out front?"

"Yeah," said the homeowner.

"Uhm ... is this the dog that's for sale?" He pointed to the hound dog, who yawned.

The owner did not answer, but the dog struggled tiredly to his feet. "Yeah, that would be me," he said in plain English with a slight British accent. "I'm a little jet-lagged because I've been in the UK for the past six months, helping out with an important investigation at the Yard. Before that I was with Interpol for about a year, helping bring down a South American drug cartel. I'm waiting to be shipped out to the Middle East in a few days, to lend my considerable expertise to the US and its allies in the war on terror."

The man was dumbfounded; could this be a trick? But no; he had heard the dog speak. Clearly. Visions of fame and fortune whirled in his head. Could he possibly afford to buy this animal? Why would the dog's owner sell him? He must want a great deal of money! But it wouldn't hurt to ask the price. So he asked. "Uhm, say ... h-how much are you hoping to get for this dog?"

The homeowner removed his baseball cap, scratched his head, and put the cap back on. "He ain't nothin' but a mutt; I figure five bucks'll do it."

"Uhm ... F-F-FIVE DOLLARS? But he can TALK! Why only five dollars?"

"Because he's a great big liar! He never did any of that stuff."

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Now, I don't care who knows it: I am always impressed by a talking dog. I actually saw a dog on TV once who could clearly say "I Love You." I heard it myself! Now, my dog Javier knows lots of words but he has yet to say any of them. Since all the kids left home he has learned a new word: "blankie" ... that is because when he's in the house with me during the day, he makes a nest of a little blanket that he has appropriated and he either totally flakes out or curls up in a ball and sleeps there for hours at a time while I work (or play). He'll come in from being outside for a while and I'll say "Go lay on your blankie!" And he runs right to it. If I had said that to him six months ago, he would have just looked at me and wagged his tail! This is how it looks when he's flaked out on his blankie:

But do you suppose sometimes we're so gobsmacked by what people say that we don't even think about whether they could possibly be telling the truth? I know I have been. Probably will be again. What are you gonna do? Pray for wisdom, I reckon.

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A nice family named Smith had a dog named Smitty who loved to dig. I mean, that dog -- given the opportunity -- would dig under any fence, any tree, any rock, any time, for no apparent reason at all. He just liked the thrill of rooting through the earth, making holes, maybe finding a treasure, maybe not. He'd bury the same bone and dig it up dozens of times. The Smiths' yard looked like a war zone. They loved Smitty so they avoided the potholes and put up with it.

Their next-door neighbors, the Joneses, however, had chosen as their children's pet a large, pure white, lop-eared rabbit. The rabbit's name was, naturally, Whitey. Whitey lived in a spacious cage that rested on a large three-foot-high table that Mr. Jones had built in his backyard specifically for that purpose. The Jones children could often be seen milling around the cage, talking to Whitey, caring for him, petting or grooming him, and even taking him out and playing with him. They were clearly devoted to Whitey, who was a calm and placid sort of fellow who, unlike Smitty, did not deface his owners' yard and indeed never caused anyone a bit of trouble.

Chain-link fence separated the Smith property from the Jones property, and consequently Smitty from Whitey. At least that's what both the Smiths and the Joneses hoped. Smitty, not a small dog, had nevertheless demonstrated an uncanny ability to dig deep enough into the earth to crawl under the chain-link fence so as to venture out and check his messages in neighboring yards. Mr. Smith had taken extra precautions to see that Smitty was prohibited from doing this, such as burying barbed-wire about two inches beneath the soil around the entire perimeter of his fence, and it had been a long while since Smitty had set foot beyond the confines of the Smith estate. And although Smitty was anything but a hunting dog, the Smiths lived in fear that he would get curious enough about Whitey to find a way to get to him.

One rainy morning their worst fears were realized. Stepping out on the porch with his coffee cup, Mr. Smith saw a sight that curdled his blood. Whitey, deader than a doornail and no longer white, lay still and bedraggled in a muddy puddle on the bottom step. Smitty sat nearby, keeping vigil. Mr. Smith looked over to the fence and saw the hole Smitty had managed to dig in order to gain access to the Jones property. He hollered to his wife, who came running. They quickly sized up the situation. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were at work and the children were at school. They wouldn't be coming outside to see Whitey for several hours. What to do?

The solution they came up with was simple! They carefully brought Whitey's pitiful remains inside. Rigor mortis had come and gone and he was as limp as a dishrag; Smitty must have made his kill in the wee hours of the morning. Mr. and Mrs. Smith carefully bathed Whitey, then used a blow dryer to make his snow-white fur fluffy and beautiful for the last time. This accomplished, Mr. Smith stealthily entered the Joneses' yard and replaced Whitey in his cage, in an attitude of peaceful repose. He then filled the hole Smitty had made under the fence, reinforced the barbed wire beneath the soil even though it clearly was not a sufficient deterrent, and went back inside to wait.

Later that afternoon, as the noisy mustard-colored schoolbus disgorged its contents in front of houses up and down the street, Mr. Smith nervously paced the kitchen floor and watched out the window for the first Jones kid to trot outside and play with Whitey. The rain had cleared up and it had turned into a beautiful afternoon, and from the window he could see a light breeze ruffling poor dead Whitey's pristine fur. He felt guilty; maybe it would have been better just to admit what Smitty had done! Offer to buy the Jones kids another white lop-eared rabbit! But it was too late now. The die was cast, as it were.

Presently the first Jones kid ran into the backyard and, as per usual, made a beeline for Whitey. A few seconds elapsed; a shriek was heard. Soon all the Joneses were gathered around Whitey's splendid cage, presumably grieving, viewing his remains and trying to figure out what he'd died of. Mr. Smith watched as they tenderly took Whitey from his cage and examined his body. In an effort to appear nonchalant, he sauntered outside and up to the fence. "Hey," he called, waving. "Everything all right?"

All Jones eyes turned to him and the Joneses moved, en masse, to the fence where Mr. Smith stood, looking dumb (which was not difficult for him). Amazingly, there was no weeping and wailing; even the eyes of the Jones children were dry and full of a decidedly quizzical expression. The entire family appeared speechless. Mrs. Jones, cradling Whitey's body, and being the one to find her tongue first, by default became the spokesperson for the group. "We're just all trying to figure out what happened to Whitey," she said. "See, he died yesterday and we buried him over here under a tree."

Aha. Whitey Jones, rabbit of mystery.

The Smiths are still trying to make it up to Smitty, who is still digging holes, reproach writ large on his face.

Draw your own conclusion! My take on it is the simple, uncomplicated one: tell the truth at the outset and avoid all the trouble deception brings. As I hear people say from time to time in depositions: "I always tell the truth; that way I don't have to try and remember what I said." (Yeah. Right. I haven't heard anyone lie under oath in, like, three days!) Or else keep your dog indoors, flaked out on his blankie. 

Comments

[June]

Oh, Jenny! You crackup! Those were great! I don't always have time to read your epic novels, but when I do they're usually worth it!

[Jenny]

I'm so glad! LOL!