Mornings With Barney by Dick Wolfsie (e book reader .TXT) 📕

“How’d you get him to do that?” people asked me the next day.

“We’ve been practicing for weeks,” I said.

And I think some people believed me.

A Dog’s Life

The meeting with Paul was definitely positive. He loved the dog and wanted him to remain part of the morning news block. More important, he wanted me to remain part of the morning news block. The downside was that he, like so many others, believed that when the dog did something funny, I had somehow orchestrated it. At the end of the meeting, he even said to me, “The peeing on the monitor was funny. But it won’t be funny the second time.” Was he serious? The dog had a mind of his own and minding me was not part of the game plan. I couldn’t say, “Okay, be funny.” I couldn’t even do that with myself.

And there was another element: I was accustomed to being the center of attention. The emphasis was shifting. Was the tail wagging the hog? Was this my first tinge of Barney jealousy? Was I envious of a stray hound with absolutely no previous TV experience?

I spent several days mulling this over. Finally I decided I was looking at this the wrong way. What other TV reporter had a dog as a sidekick? This human/canine team could be a meal ticket to success for both of us.

What we needed, though, was a breakthrough moment, a segment that people would talk about around the water cooler. All the promotion you can buy, all the billboards, all the print ads pale in comparison to word of mouth. The next week a gift arrived from heaven in the form of a letter, a gift that kept on giving for the next eleven years, and it became the most repeated show, kicking off every highlight tape of Barney’s many years on TV.

While most viewers were enjoying Barney’s mischief, one viewer was troubled by the shenanigans—or at least thought that I was. On air, I continually lamented the dog’s destructive behavior, playing the victim’s role, and pretending that his behavior was more than I could handle, which was certainly true at home. So distressed did I appear that Dr. Gary Sampson, a former research veterinarian with Eli Lilly, wrote me a sympathetic note claiming he could be of assistance. Sampson had retired from Lilly and had started a new career dealing exclusively with dog and cat behavior. I read the letter and immediately called him.

“I can help Barney with that digging,” he told me over the phone.

“Geez, Doc, the last thing Barney needs is help. I want someone to stop him.”

Honestly, I didn’t want Dr. Sampson’s help. Barney’s uncontrollable behavior on TV was getting lots of street talk. Hmmm ... I asked Dr. Sampson to come on the show live and discuss how to remedy the situation. He was hesitant. His practice was primarily done over the phone, and the idea of live TV was frightening and unpredictable to him.

I was good at convincing people to appear on TV (a friend used to say I could talk a dog off a meat truck) and besides, this was good PR for the doctor’s new career. So, two weeks later, bright and early, Dr. Sampson and I sat on my front step at 5 in the morning while he pontificated about the animal instinct to dig and chew and some of the possible remedies for besieged dog owners like myself. Barney was unimpressed. He sat there and bayed during the early segments. Neighbors peeped out of doors and windows to see what was causing the disturbance. But as you will now see, it was a day that lived in infamy.

Never in the history of live television has a dog taken a cue better than Barney. At the first mention of digging by Dr. Sampson, Barney was on a mission. His first target was my wife’s rosebush near the front stoop. The barrage of dirt was so great that both the doc and I spent most of the interview brushing off the remains of his excavation. Mud and topsoil came spewing from between Barney’s legs. Mary Ellen’s rosebush had been deflowered and uprooted. The front porch was a disaster area.

Looking at the pile of dirt that had accumulated at his feet and peering at Barney as he continued to burrow, the good doctor observed: “There must be something down there that he wants.”

Ya think?

Dr. Sampson was absolutely right. Actually, I was going to make a similar, albeit layman’s assessment of the situation. The dirt kept coming. Barney didn’t even let up during the first commercial break. This was always the thing that distinguished him from other television talent. He was no media phony. He was the same on the air and off.

During the break, I mentioned to the doctor that we should probably move from discussing the digging problem to Barney’s chewing problem. The vet agreed that was a good idea.

We never did do that segment. As we chatted, Barney chewed through the audio cord from the camera, and so we were off the air. The segment ended. Dave Barras, the anchor back at the station, said we had technical difficulties. Technically, we did. His name was Barney. If YouTube had existed then, we’d have been the number-one download.

Dr. Sampson’s career did not suffer from his TV interaction with Barney. In fact, he is today a leading expert on dog and cat behavior. Dr. Sampson seldom meets with the dogs in person; he simply helps the owners correct their ways, consulting over the phone. It is rare for Dr. Sampson to make a house call. Gee, I wonder if he had a bad experience at someone’s house.

Dr. Sampson and I lost touch for quite a while, although he apparently followed Barney’s career on TV for years. The last thing I wanted was a well-behaved dog and the