The Case of the Perfect Dog. John R. Erickson
Nobody cares if you’re sorry.”
“Okay, I’m not sorry.”
“The trouble with you is that you’re never sorry for your mistakes.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s your attitude, Drover. You have a lousy attitude. I ought to throw the book at you, but I’m going to let you off easy this time. Twenty-three demerits and fifteen Chicken Marks.”
“Ouch.”
“Don’t argue with me. This will go into your permanent record.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re dismissed.” I glanced around. “What were we doing before you provoked this outburst?”
“Well, let me think.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, Little Alfred just came out of the house.”
“In that case, we haven’t a moment to spare. Prepare to launch all dogs!”
And with that, we dived into our Rocket Dog suits and went streaking through ranch headquarters to join our little pal. We had no idea what he was doing, but among the possibilities was that he had come out of the house with breakfast scraps, and you know where I stand on that issue.
Scrap Time is a major event in the life of every dog. Not only do we enjoy wolfing down the scraps, but we draw even more pleasure wolfing at the cat and making sure that he gets no scraps. Hee, hee.
Yes, by George, we needed to check this out.
We arrived just as the boy was coming out the yard gate. I reconoodled the situation, and noted that he carried a red plastic bucket in his right hand. Left hand. He was carrying a bucket, is the point, and it really doesn’t matter which hand was doing the work. The real question was—what did the bucket contain?
See, at our previous Scrap Events, he had come outside with a plate and a fork, not a bucket. Most of the time, the plate held luscious scraps and he used the fork to scrape them off the plate, at which point we dogs did our best job of gobbling them down…while following certain anti-cat procedures, shall we say.
May I speak frankly about those procedures? They’re designed to encourage our little creep of a cat to move along. His name is Pete. We don’t like him and we’re dedicated to the belief that he deserves no scraps, none, zero. Any time Pete gets a bite of scraps, we regard it as a personal tragedy for our side. It plunges the entire Security Division into a period of mourning and brooding.
Why should the cat receive the reward of scraps? He does nothing that contributes to the good of the ranch. On an average day, he spends most of his time lurking in the iris patch. Now and then, he will come out to rub on someone’s ankles or to whine for a handout, but you’ll never see him doing what ranch cats are supposed to do: catching mice. That’s too much trouble. He makes me sick.
But would you like to guess who followed Little Alfred out the gate? Mister Never Sweat, Mister Kitty Moocher. His mere presence caused lights to flash in the control room of my mind, and I heard a fearsome rumble in the depths of my throat.
I rolled up to him and lifted Tooth Shields, revealing two rows of bad news for cats. “Get lost, kitty, dogs are on the scene. Buzz off, go back to your spider web.”
Do you suppose he took the hint? Oh no. Cats don’t take hints. He gave me his usual smirk, and in his usual whiney voice, he said, “My, my! I think the cops have just arrived.”
“You get a bingo on that. The cops are here and the cats need to move along. Scram.”
“But Hankie, I’m curious to see what’s in the red bucket.”
“What’s in the red bucket is classified information. You’ll be told after we’ve checked it out.”
“But Hankie,” he widened his eyes, “what if it contains scraps?”
“We’ll make that announcement at the appropriate time, after we’ve had a chance to sift through the material. If we find scraps, you’ll never see them, but we might tell you about them.” I turned to my assistant. “Drover, stand by. We might need to help this cat find a tree.”
Drover giggled. “Oh goodie, this’ll be fun!” Drover must have been feeling brave, because he inched closer to the cat and growled. “Pick a tree, Pete, ‘cause we’re fixing to…”
Bam! It was a left jab. It came out of nowhere and left a tattoo on the soft leathery portion of Drover’s nose. He never saw it coming, and let out a squall of shock and pain. By then, it was over. Pete high-balled it back to the yard and took up a position right below Sally May’s kitchen window. From that location, he waved a paw and stuck out his tongue at us.
Pete had just brought us to the drink of war.
The brink of war.
Chapter Two: A Non-Scrap Event
Drover was stunned. “He hit me and I hadn’t even done anything yet. Now look at him! He’s sticking out his tongue at us.”
“I understand, son, but we have to let this one go. We can’t risk sending troops into the yard. Don’t forget Sally May and her broom.”
“Yeah, but he slugged me!”
“I know he did, but let me point out something very important. Pete’s gone and we’ve got the scraps all to ourselves. That’s what we wanted, right?”
“Yeah, but my nose hurts.”
“Son, you were brave. You accomplished your mission, you got rid of a nuisance, and I’m proud of you.”
He stared at me, then smiled. “You are?”
I gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Absolutely, and you know what else? I think we can forget about those demerits and Chicken Marks. Let’s just say they disappeared from our files. Now, let’s check out the scraps.”
“What about my nose?”
“Bring it along. You can use it on the scraps.”
It isn’t often that Drover distinguishes himself in combat, and when he does, we try to make a big deal out of it. I realize that getting sucker-punched by a cat isn’t the highest form of bravery, but at least the little guy had dared to put his nose into harm’s way. It was a start, and maybe it would give us something to build on.
After that touching ceremony, we turned our attention to…where was the boy? And, more to the point, where was that bucket of scraps? He’d been right there beside us when the fighting had broken out, but now…
At last I caught sight of him. He had gone to the garden, a patch of fertile ground that had been enclosed inside a hog wire fence. You might say that we dogs were not encouraged to go there. Why? Sally May had some peculiar ideas about dogs and gardens. On the few rare occasions when we had jumped the fence, our presence had caused major explosions.
So it struck me as odd that Alfred had chosen to do Scrap Distribution in the garden. He was about to enter the gate when we arrived on the scene, out of breath but glowing with anticipation of the big event.
Right away, I went into the Loyal Dog Waiting Configuration: plopped my hind quarters on the ground, sat at attention, and beamed him Looks of Longing and Sincerity. Drover followed my lead and did the same.
The boy seemed surprised. “Hi Hankie, what do you want?”
Well…uh…at the risk of seeming blunt…what was in the bucket?
“Oh, you want some skwaps?”
Well, sure, scraps would be nice. Yes, absolutely. I gave my tail five vigorous thumps on the ground.
He shrugged.