[funny-bone] Humor: Dave Barry on dogs

[Walker Family <walkers4@pacbell.net>]

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                  A dog's life of vigilance is worthless
                           BY DAVE BARRY

TODAY'S TOPIC is: Home Security.
Recently my wife and I went to the home of some friends for a dinner
party
involving three couples and numerous pets. Our hosts are fond of
animals:
They have a big herd of turtles living in a decorative pond outside and
three dogs patrolling inside. Actually, one of the dogs is only slightly

more mobile than a shrub; he's around 47,000 years old in dog years and
totally blind. He may in fact be medically dead. But dogs don't get all
mopey over physical disabilities. This particular dog still maintains a
productive routine, which consists of every now and then getting to his
feet (this takes about an hour) and wandering around until he bumps into

something, which he sniffs. If he thinks it might be food, he tries to
eat
it; if it bites back, he knows it's one of the other dogs.

The two younger dogs are more active; their job is to wait for people to

come to the door, then bark loudly and angrily to communicate the fact
that, based on their extensive experience as dogs, the people at the
door
are bad and somebody should bite them. Dogs are deeply suspicious of
anybody using a door. Even if, when the door is opened, it turns out
that
the people standing there know the dogs, and in fact live in the house,
the
dogs will sometimes continue barking at them for a few seconds, in case
it's some kind of trick.

Dogs behave this way because they are extremely vigilant (I am using
``vigilant'' in the sense of ``stupid''). I have some friends named
Libby
and Buzz who have a small, nervous dog named Elmo who is so vigilant
that
he would be classified, on the scale of animal intelligence, in the
category
of ``mineral.'' Elmo and Buzz have lived in the same house for several
years
now, but every time Buzz walks into a room where Elmo is on duty, Elmo
reacts as though Buzz is an entire urban street gang, barking, growling
and
running around in small, alarmed circles to let Libby know that Buzz is
bad
and she should bite him (she rarely does). After maybe 15 minutes, Elmo
starts to remember who Buzz is, and he calms down. But if Buzz leaves
the
room for, say, 10 seconds, all the current drains out of Elmo's mental
battery, and when Buzz returns, YIKES! RED ALERT! Elmo goes off again,
like
a small, furry defective car alarm. It is not a quiet household. But by
gosh, it is a SECURE household, thanks to Elmo's vigilance.

But getting back to my story: We were having a nice dinner in our
friends'
home, and during this dinner one of the dogs kept going to a window and
growling. We paid no attention because dogs are always growling -- maybe
at
the moon, maybe at the turtles, maybe at the Federal Reserve Board --
who
can say?

After dinner all of us, including the dogs, went into another room to
have
dessert and watch the Miami Heat play an important basketball game.
Actually, the women watched the game; the men actively controlled the
outcome by shouting at the screen. The dogs watched the dessert.
Through skillful team shouting, we men won the game, and everybody
agreed
it had been a pleasant evening. Then the women discovered that their
purses,
which had been in the kitchen, were gone. While we'd been shouting at
the
TV, a burglar had sneaked in and stolen them. He'd obviously been
watching
us through the window. The growling dog had been telling us this.

When we discovered the burglary, different people reacted in different
ways.
Some called the police; others smoked cigarettes, even though they have
technically quit. I decided to go outside and look around the yard for
clues. Perhaps I would even find the perpetrator! Then, drawing on my
prowess in the martial arts, I would wet my pants.
I was called back into the house by my wife, who had been informed by
the
police dispatcher that, by wandering around out in the dark, I was being

really, really "vigilant". The police came quickly. Needless to say, the

dogs barked at them. (The young dogs, I mean; the dead dog merely
checked
to see if they were food.) We later concluded that the reason the dogs
did
NOT bark at the burglar was that (a) they were busy watching the
dessert, and
(b) the burglar came in through the window, which apparently is not a
violation of dog security rules.

The next day the purses were found a few miles away, minus cash but
still
containing credit cards, drivers' licenses, makeup, tissues,
pharmaceuticals, espresso machines, power tools and whatever else women
keep in their purses. So it could have been a lot worse. And we can all
learn
some valuable lessons from this episode about home security, namely:
1. We should lock our doors AND windows,
2. Dogs will give you a lot of ``false alarms,'' but every now and then
they may really know what they're barking about.
3. On the other hand, maybe not.
4. Experts agree that, if you want REAL home security and peace of mind,

turtles are worthless.

Write to Dave Barry in care of the Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Drive,
San
Jose, Calif. 95190. His weekly columns are available on Mercury Center
at
www.sjmercury.com/columnists/barry/

Randy Walker
The Good Humor man


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