A word from Tinker

The view from Doggie Heaven has been pretty entertaining lately. I don’t usually let earthly goings on distract me, but Banjo and Puddin’ writing blogs has gotten my attention.  It seems Mum’s gotten so lazy these days that she’s letting Banjo and Puddin’ write their own stories. Well, no way I’m getting left out of the fun.

I’m not sure I can bring myself to refer to those two as Lord Banjo and Princess Puddin’, no matter how special they think they are.  They seem to have forgotten that I was the favorite child and that they were simply also-rans. I know that if I hadn’t left for Doggie Heaven, they wouldn’t be getting nearly as much attention. Sure, Banjo would get to go on walks with me and Dad, but that would be about it.

What kind of dog is Banjo anyway?  He mostly just lies around or bugs Mum and Dad to pet him. He doesn’t play with squeaky toys or stuffed animals.  And never mind balls; he won’t even pick one up.  

In my prime, I chased balls pretty much nonstop.  It was usually Dad who quit first, when his pitching arm went out, though every once in a while I had to lie down to rest…with a ball in my mouth, of course.  If I couldn’t get anyone to play with me, I’d find something to play with in one of my toy boxes.  Well, if I’m being honest, I sometimes pulled out quite a few toys until I got just the right one, and I never did learn to put them away. 

I had a football, a beach ball, a Mickey Mouse ball, and loads of racquet and tennis balls. If Mum sat down on the floor to work out with her medicine ball, I’d try to grab that.  And hey, when on my own in the backyard without a playmate, I’d play nose ball.  That’s what Mum and Dad called the game I played by bouncing a ball up a tree with my nose and catching it on the way down.

When we were stuck inside, Mum and Dad would sit on the floor with me and play roller ball. Have you ever rolled a tennis ball to a dog who could stop it with a paw and then “nose” it back your way?  Yup, that’s how we played ball in the house. Mum let us get a bit more rambunctious on the screened porch, where the toy box was filled with balls and squeaky toys. Sometimes we played ball; sometimes we played with squeaky toys.  Dad squeaked and tossed them, and I caught ‘em, usually in midair. 

I did slow down a bit my last few years, but if you were a fourteen-year-old dog, you’d slow down too. I was no longer leaping in the air to catch squeaky toys and balls nor running nonstop to retrieve them in the backyard, but I was still a star at roller ball and demolishing stuffed animals.

I hate to brag, not being royal and all, but I was pretty talented, and certainly more entertaining than Lord Banjo.  I may not be able to beat Princess Puddin’s acrobatics, but hey, she’s just a cat, so she’s not really in the running for top dog.

Now, enough of this writing thing. It’s time to get back to chasing balls through the woods and splashing in the Doggie Heaven Creek.  It’s not that I don’t miss you, Mum and Dad, but life is pretty darned good here in Doggie Heaven.

Fan mail for Tinker may be sent to Inkpenn119@gmail.com