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

him there to rest for a few hours. My reporting obligations for the early morning show usually got me home by 7:30, almost a half-hour before the rest of the Wolfsies crawled out of bed. By the time I got back, I could explain the dog’s presence and decide what to do next. What was the harm in that?

I’m an idiot.

That morning I reported live from the Boat, Sport & Travel Show, an annual event in Indianapolis that features everything for the sportsman and adventurer. One of my guests was a lumberjack who entertained the crowds with log-rolling and tree-chopping demonstrations. At the end of the program, as I prepared to head back, I told him about the beagle pup I had found on my doorstep. He flashed me a big, toothy smile and said, “Are you serious? You left a stray beagle alone, unattended in your house?” And with that, he gathered his tools, climbed into his sedan, and sped off. In Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the woodsmen were good with foreshadowing, so I quickly headed home.

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into our driveway. Lights were on all through the house. Not a good sign at this hour. Despite the chilly temperature, the door was slightly ajar, so I peeked in, hoping to see that the dog was still asleep on the rug. I hoped he had not crawled up onto the couch.

Yeah, he was on the couch . . . what was left of it, along with what was left of the shredded pillows. I stepped inside. The curtains had been literally yanked off their rods, and one designer high-heel shoe, minus the heel but with a new fashionable hole in the toe, sat in the middle of the kitchen floor. A corner of the dining room rug had been ripped up, and the kitchen trash can had been knocked over, with the contents distributed across the floor. Later, after an extensive inventory, we concluded that a lot had been ingested, as well.

Incredibly, he had not had an accident. What a good dog!

As I surveyed the wreckage, my son, Brett, descended the stairs with a beheaded teddy bear and an unstuffed lion, more casualties of the dog’s multilevel tirade. Tears rolled down Brett’s cheeks. He stared at the beagle, then shot a glance at his decapitated menagerie.

“Daddy, can we not keep him?”

Brett was not a dog person. Our cats, Benson and Lindsay, had been family members for several years and Brett was comfortable with their unassuming, laid-back style. The two felines barely acknowledged each other, save an occasional spat when they encountered the food bowl at the same time. In just the couple of hours that the new dog had occupied our house, the cats had already formed an alliance to protect their turf. They began tormenting the trespasser by pawing and hissing at him. I don’t think Barney had much experience with cats and was confused by the pandemonium he had created, clearly perplexed by the notion that another living creature might not take to him at first sight.

Mary Ellen was understandably a little stressed, not sure if this interloper might have a mean streak, so when Barney finally had the courage to lunge at one of the cats in selfdefense, my wife let out a scream that frightened both me and the beagle half to death. Brett, in the meantime, had grabbed a pillow from the couch and was swatting wildly at the dog. All this chaos was enough evidence for my son: we didn’t need a dog, especially one that represented a serious threat to the relative tranquility in our home.

Mary Ellen zeroed in with a piercing gaze that I was unfamiliar with. After all these years, I don’t remember her exact words, but I do remember that the expression on her face was one I was not familiar—or comfortable—with. Mary Ellen is a loving, giving, caring person, but she does not tolerate chaos. When she plans our vacations, she peruses maps, analyzes the landscape, and consults books for details of the climate and culture. “Are we planning a vacation or an invasion?” I always ask her. I was afraid what she was planning now.

No, the beagle had not made a good first impression. Mary Ellen offered me the “opportunity to return him.” She sure knew how to phrase things. This seemed like a reasonable request. Wait a second—I didn’t know where he came from.

“What’s his name?” Mary Ellen asked.

“I have no idea. We just met.”

That morning I had done a segment at a new café in Danville, Indiana, patterned after the old Andy Griffith Show. I guess the name Barney (as in Fife) was on my mind. He could have ended up being an Opie or a Floyd or even a Griffith. No, he was going to be Barney.

Mary Ellen, then an administrator at Community Hospital in Indianapolis, headed off for work and offered to drop Brett off at preschool, which was normally my job. She never said it, but I think she expected me to deal with the problem without telling her the details. She didn’t want the dog, but the thought of me turning him loose or taking him to the pound would have disturbed her. Mary Ellen was like this with mice, as well. She wanted to rid the house of pests, but the details of a rodent’s demise and how it was disposed of were not to be discussed. Kinda like when people got whacked on The Sopranos.

While Mary Ellen and Brett were gone, I scrutinized the entire house for any additional damage. I wasn’t sure why I felt so protective of him, but I knew that if I had any hope of keeping this dog, I needed to keep one mess ahead of him.

And did he belong to someone? Had he escaped? Been kicked out of someone’s house? I don’t know why, but it never dawned on me that someone might be looking for this dog. Quite the contrary. This