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

I went into a grocery store), he was usually in the car (with the air conditioner or heater on). When I returned from my shopping there would be a crowd of people petting him through the half-open window. As I neared the car, no one ever asked, “Aren’t you Dick Wolfsie?” It was always, “Is that Barney?” “It sure is,” I would say. Then I’d open the car door and let him come out to greet his fans. I don’t think in the hundreds of situations like that I ever answered a single question about me or what I do. The attention was always on Barney.

Funny You Should Ask

What made Barney so funny? I used to have this surreal belief that he had a sense of humor. Let’s get serious.

Here’s the truth. Dogs are, well, dogs. They enter our human world and we expect them to act like dogs. Right? Not really. In fact, most of us have a set idea of how our canines should behave. Tail wagging is cool. So is sitting and rolling over on command. But that’s a short list. We keep dogs on a short leash, so to speak.

I’m always amused when I a hear a dog owner reeling off a list of his or her pet’s virtues: He doesn’t mess in the house, she doesn’t climb on the furniture, he doesn’t chew things, she doesn’t leave the food all around her bowl, he doesn’t bark at other dogs, she doesn’t pull me when we go for a walk, he doesn’t run away, etc., etc. Notice anything about this list? It’s all negatives, all things the poor dog doesn’t do! Well, not having a dog achieves pretty much the same results, at considerably less cost in money and effort. The point is, these behaviors are natural. When someone says about your dog, “Oh, he’s such a good boy,” what they mean is: you’ve managed to suck the real dog out of him.

Now, in all fairness, I have heard dog owners boast about their pets’ naughtiness or how spoiled they are. But usually these are endearing behaviors . . . and tolerable. Like when your toddler smears cake all over his face at his birthday party.

The cool part about being a dog owner is that you have power. You are a control freak. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s true. There’s this dog whisperer on TV who says he hates long leashes because it lets the dog think he’s the boss. Barney was always on a long leash. I paid the price and reaped the rewards.

What made Barney a hoot is that I let him be a dog in a human world. He was sometimes naughty, sometimes nice, and occasionally nuts. Not just in the regular human world, but in the manufactured, often rehearsed world of TV. If your dog ate four sticks of butter (like Barney once did) you’d be ticked: at the expense, the mess, the diarrhea. Basically I let Barney be himself. I let him go where his instincts led him. Do not try this at home with a teenager. Everything I ever aspired to on TV, Barney achieved through the niche that his very nature afforded him. I wanted to be unpredictable. I wanted people to wonder, “Gee, what will Dick do today?” I had to work hard at that, but not the dog. For him it was natural. Dogs don’t have day planners.

And yet, I did wonder sometimes. Did he have a sense of humor? A natural sense of timing? His unpredictability was damn predictable in the sense that you knew he was going to do something funny. Case in point: Damien Mason was a very talented Bill Clinton impersonator who came on the show during the 2000 presidential campaign.

I rarely did in-studio interviews, but the satellite truck was broken and this kind of exchange really did work better in a seated arrangement. In cases like this, Barney occupied the third seat on the set, happy to chill out and snooze during the chat.

I was seated to Mason’s right, Barney to his left. But this time Barney sat straight up in his seat for the duration of the exchange. As Mason delivered one-liners lampooning the president, Barney was attentive. As the interview wrapped in the third and final segment, Mason turned to Barney and asked: “Barney, I’m not happy with Al Gore. How about being on the ticket with me as vice president?”

Barney turned, looked at the comic, shook his head abruptly, jumped off the chair, and disappeared as the cameras followed him out the studio door. Anchor Dave Barras made the oddest remark. “I swear, that was totally unrehearsed,” he said, as viewers heard the camera crew burst into laughter. Did he think that the dog had writers? Could he read a teleprompter?

Barney took one famous bit after another right out of a playbook. One spring we arranged a visit to observe the Carmel High School baseball team in practice. Five AM was not their normal start time for a workout, but the coach wanted a little publicity for the team, which was on a winning tear and had one of the best pitchers in the state.

I interviewed the coach in the first segment and then as the sun came up we decided to show the celebrated hurler in action. The first athlete struck out on three blinding fastballs. Barney was sitting on the bench enjoying the attention of the rest of the team. At the plate, the next batter swung wildly, squiggling a ball down the left infield foul line. Barney scampered off the bench, grabbed the ball while it was still rolling, and headed for the outfield.

“Hey!” screamed the coach. “That’s our only ball!” With that, all the players ditched their gloves and pursued Barney. The bench emptied as well, reminiscent of the onset of a brawl in professional sports.

I stood there with the same thought I always had.