No, it’s not your imagination; Robby’s been making way more appearances in Beagle Man than usual lately. That’s cause he’s home from school for the summer, and he and I hang out with Ricky a lot. Here’s our very latest brilliant idea for our beagle’s well-being.
We got this brainstorm when an obnoxious air conditioner repair guy came to our house. He was loud and opinionated — a real blowhard — and he kept complaining that Ricky was getting in his way, and didn’t seem to listen to commands very well. The implication was that in terms of obedience, Ricky couldn’t hold a candle to this guy’s Lab.
Now Robby and I may make a lot of fun of our dog, but we don’t like it one bit when somebody else goes and does it. And while we refrained from being outright rude to this know-it-all, we were both thinking exactly the same thing: Seriously? You want a medal for training a Lab? Labs are born trained!
We had the same type of thing happen a few years back when we were walking Ricky on Compo Beach with my good friend Langdon. Lang is one of those guys who always knows the right way to do things. Remarkably, the right way always happens to be his way. And if you’re not doing it the right way, he’ll be nice enough to let you know. On this stroll Ricky was lunging ahead, lagging behind, wrapping the leash around my legs, and then stopping on a dime, yanking my arm out of its socket. It was pretty clear Lang thought I’d done a piss-poor job training my beagle. Oh, and did I mention? Lang has owned nothing but Goldens — another breed that’s a real challenge. They’ll bring you the very newspaper you use to paper-train them, for God’s sake!
I watched as Lang took the leash from me — and I knew exactly what was going to happen. “Ricky, sit,” Lang commanded, in his firm, no-nonsense voice. Ricky ambled away to sniff some seaweed. “Ricky, heel,” said my friend, the alpha male. My beagle lunged at a passing short-haired Dachshund. “Ricky, stay!” Ricky jogged to the nearby lifeguard stand and took a nice, leisurely pee. In short, he did whatever the bleep he felt like doing. That’s just Ricky being Ricky.
So Robby and I have come up with a solution for this kind of criticism we get from Lang, and from the A.C. repairman, and from all the other dog mavens we know. Whatever Ricky’s about to do, that’s what we tell him to do.
“Ricky, jump up on the dining room table and grab that lamb chop. Good boy!”
“Ricky, fall asleep on Carol’s favorite robe. And snore. Atta boy!”
“Keep barking at those deer Ricky, even though they’re never going to move one iota.”
“Ricky, go drink some water. What a good, thirsty dog!”
Just think how much less embarrassing this will be for me next time Ricky throws himself down on the ground at the periphery of the dog park and won’t budge, while all the normal dogs are rolling around and frolicking together in one carefree, fun-loving jumble. “Ricky!” I’ll say. “Lie down — and don’t play with the other dogs! Good boy.”
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