By Peppermint Patti
JOTR Columnist
Sucking up! Sophie, there’s nothing wrong with sucking up. Nothing at all. But you gotta know how to do it.
Sucking up is what saved my butt, believe me, Sophie.
Male two-leggers are a tough crew.
I should know.
I wound up in the pound because of a hard-headed male two-legger.
Can we just call em TLs from now on? You and I know what we mean.
Yeah, Sofie, I wasn’t always a well-loved house dog with a yard of my own. Things like that don’t just happen, as I learned in my first two homes.
Made some mistakes, I did.
Not sucking up was one.
Not sucking up to the male two-legger, you know, the boy TL.
Oh, I was cute, all right. Too cute.
I thought I could ride cute all the way home from the pet store and then some.
Oh yes, Sophie, I was born with a pedigree. I was not always a faux bichon. My first family had papers that said I was a pure bichon frisse.
But where are those papers now?
I blew it, Sophie. Blew it big time.
Oh, where are those papers?
My new two-leggers call me their “faux bichon,” like I’m a fake.
Once upon a time I could have proved them wrong.
Not now, Sophie. Not now.
I have to grit my canines when they joke about their mutt from the pound.
Mutt from the pound, indeed!
If they only had a lineage as pure as mine.
Right back to the French kings, that’s where my parentage leads.
Or led.
I banked on those papers.
And I banked on cute.
Cute didn’t cut it when I started hitting the garbage can.
The Good Humor Man my first two-legger was not.
Dog, Sophie, you shoulda seen the creation I made. I was so proud. They left me alone with an open kitchen cupboard and a trash can loaded with dead cooked pig, dead cow and rotten fish.
Nirvana!
It was a regular buffet.
First I caught the black bag with my teeth and tipped the can over. There were some old oily paper towels on top that smelled delish, but I set that aside for dessert and got to work on the dead pig bones. As you know, gnashing is best done on a carpet, so I gnawed the first one on the living room rug, a pretty red and black woven thing with flecks of gold and blue. Well, not so much gold and blue after after I scattered those oily towels around, but I think you can conjure the scene, both visually and olfactorily. As I say, it was a real creation.
But the male two-legger did not appreciate my work. He said some unkind things, and you know, a faux bichon is a sensitive breed especially when she’s really a true bichon going back to ancient France, and I took it wrong and next thing you know, kind of depressed, I saw the back yard gate open and took a hike. There was more wonderful chow outside in more cans than you can imagine, so I sniffed and munched along till some male two-legger in a truck lured me over with one of those phony bacon treats I’m such a sucker for and next thing I knew, I was behind bars.
Oh, if I had only sucked up to that male two-legger, Sophie. But that is history, and as you know, what is past is past.
Besides, hey! Did you see that? A swoop-bird just nailed a flyer. See that? What nerve! My yard! This cannot stand! Stand by, Sophie, don’t go away.
Sneeze. Sophie, that was the best dove I’ve had. Too bad about that fence, or I’d share. What a pushover that swooper was. I barked, “Hit the air waves and don’t come back, Jack!” and he was aloft in a heartbeat.
Tasty, tasty bird, the dove.
Where was I? Oh yes, if I’d played my cards right and sucked up more on that first gig, I’d of kept my kennel papers and my rank.
But you know, being a faux bichon ain’t all bad. I still hit the garbage cans, but I’m more discreet.
And I sit in the lap and lick the hand of my new two-leggers.
Sucking up pays off, Sophie.
