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

watch TV. But I saw your ad in the paper. Every Sunday night I call everyone who’s lost a pet just to see if they found their little friend. I’m glad you found him. I have six more calls to make. Bye.”

The next morning, I did the morning show from my house. Barney made an entrance through my dining room doors. I could hear the cheers from the crew in the studio. I truly believed I could feel the sighs of relief all over central Indiana. I admit I milked his return for every “ooh” and “ahh” I could get. But everywhere I went for the next month, all people could say was, “I’m so glad he’s back” “We were so worried” “What would you have done if you hadn’t found him?”

A variation of that last question haunted me during Barney’s entire life. What was I without Barney?

Did Barney really walk to Southport? Even I doubt that. He hitched a ride from someone, jumped onto a UPS truck, or hopped into the backseat of a 4x4, then hopped back out at the first stop. The lady who found him said he’d just appeared on her front step and howled to come in. That was Barney. He did not relish spending the evening outside in the cold. He knew he had to find a hot meal and a warm body to sleep next to. It was simply a matter of charming the pants off someone. And he was very good at that. He could do that to anyone.

Except Mary Ellen. She always saw through both of us. A common question fielded by my wife over the years was: “Is he the same at home as on TV?” This, of course, was usually in reference to Barney, not me. But when Mary Ellen wasn’t sure who the questioner meant, she simply said “high maintenance,” which pretty much covered all bases.

Sometimes she used the terms loyal, loving, and good with people. I guess I had never realized how similar the dog and I were. There was one difference. Except when I accidentally threw away my paycheck, Mary Ellen seldom caught me in the garbage.

When we moved into a new house in the mid-nineties we solved one of our major problems: Barney’s running away. We installed an electric fence, which delivers a mild zap if your pet tries to venture outside the parameters of the yard. With Barney’s wanderlust now controlled, he seemed to mellow a bit, especially as he aged. But he only mellowed at home. Not at work.

At each new remote location, his natural beagle curiosity led him into constant exploration because there were always new people to meet, or maybe people with meat. But back at the house, once he had established that there was no way to score a treat and had been gently reminded by his electric collar that he was confined to the yard, he took the option I always favored when my basic desires were thwarted: He took a nap.

Unlike his daily excursions with me, home had become a bit old hat. Except for an occasional surprise visitor at the front door, life was mundane. His breeding required the equivalent of a fox hunt each morning to get the juices flowing. That mission was accomplished on TV. Then it was back to the lair—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. He seldom watched TV, although I was struck over the years at how many people sent me photos of their dogs watching Barney on the boob tube.

Barney followed me around from room to room, always preferring to nap within a few feet of my location. This allowed him to lobby for inclusion in any errands I had to run around town. He’d sit up on his back legs and howl at me when I put on my shoes. I was a soft touch. I never went anywhere without him.

On occasion, he’d nest next to Mary Ellen on the couch, especially if I had to leave the house without him. Barney seldom had much to do with Brett, who continued to believe that cats were where it was at.

Brett was never cruel to Barney. Not once. It was simply a loveless, arranged marriage. Brett had an unspoken deal with this devil: I’ll stay out of your face; you stay out of my room.

That was the reality of life at home. Some people may have thought that Barney was a laugh a minute 24/7. That he led some kind of celebrity life. It wasn’t that he was a different dog at home; it was simply that he was a dog at home. Not always a well-behaved one, but still a dog.

Taking a Dive

Early in 1994, I did a segment from the swimming championships at the Natatorium in downtown Indy. This seemed like a place where it would be safe to let him roam. The area was enclosed, no trash was visible anywhere, and Barney did not like to swim—so I knew he wouldn’t skirt the edge of the water and sniff around. I figured he’d be a touch disappointed when, unlike other places with pools we had visited, there were no beach chairs for him to sack out in once snuffle patrol was over.

As was often the case, once I got into a TV interview that did not specifically require the dog, I would temporarily forget his whereabouts, focusing instead on the task at hand. This time my conversations were with the swimming officials and a few of the athletes.

I was often faced with a kind of catch-22. Recognizing Barney’s thirst for exploration, I knew it was necessary to let him wander during the TV segments. Tying him up restricted his troublemaking nature, but that, I realized quickly, was what viewers wanted to see. Even inside a building he could get into a lot of trouble. He’d investigate every nook and cranny, climbing back staircases and snooping in areas that were clearly off limits. Call it rubbernecking or beaglenecking, people