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

I finally returned home without him, there was usually a phone call on my answering machine from somebody who had found him sniffing about in his garage. In later years, he stuck closer to me. As I said, we had both lost a little wanderlust.

I estimated once that the two of us walked about 4,000 miles together. More than anything else, more even than our time on TV, I miss those walks. There were no fans to please, no news directors to satisfy, no time cues to hit, no makeup to put on.

I’m not a tree hugger or a nature nut. I’m just a city boy who moved west from New York and discovered that a half hour in the woods with your best friend is even sweeter than a half-sour pickle.

Grow Old Along with Me

The earliest sign of Barney’s aging was the gradual loss of his hearing. Those big droopy ears could once detect a Pringle hitting the kitchen floor at thirty paces. Barney could hear me crack a dog biscuit three rooms away. He knew the doorbell was going to ring seconds before it chimed—he heard the footsteps. When Barney was deep in the woods behind our house, I’d rattle a box of Milk-Bones and he would be at the back door in seconds. But his personal radar system was going on the fritz. Those big ears were becoming just so much window dressing.

Maybe I should have identified this problem earlier. Commands like “Come here!” “Sit!” “Bad dog!” “Stop eating trash!” went unheeded. But since he’d never paid any attention to those commands when he had perfect hearing, I didn’t realize what was happening.

Barney and I did about 2,500 shows together. Mornings went like this: I’d switch off the alarm, jump in the shower, and get dressed. Waiting for me at the door half an hour later was Barney, ready for a new adventure. But one day, he wasn’t at the door; he was still curled up in my bed, snoring away. He hadn’t heard the alarm, or the shower, or the flushing toilet. He was shaking and vibrating in the middle of some doggy fantasy dream. I hated to wake him up. But we had to go to work.

For years, when the family went out for the day, Barney would spend his afternoon on our bed, his head propped against my pillow, body stretched out like a lazy feline. When we’d return, he’d hear the car pull into the driveway and dash downstairs to greet us at the door.

No more.

I walked into the bedroom, where he was snoozing. I tried to roust him by bellowing his name. Barney! Barney, we’re home.

No response.

I walked over and gently scratched his belly. His head snapped up like a jack-in-the-box. “What in blazes was that?” he seemed to be saying. “You scared me half to death.” Like most dogs, and especially beagles, Barney was used to hearing it or smelling it before he saw it or felt it. Now I felt bad when I disturbed him. Maybe, I thought, I should call home and say we’re on the way . . . not that he would have heard the phone. Or knew how to answer it.

Our walks in the woods changed, as well. Beagles are hounds, bred to travel in packs when they hunt. Barney often walked ahead of me but would on occasion twist his head around to be sure I was nearby, still part of the hunting party. But such confirmation was rare because he could hear my footsteps. On occasion, I would hide behind a tree. When the footsteps stopped, he predictably turned to check my whereabouts. This confirmed his devotion to me, a method that has never worked with my wife, who once walked ahead of me for a half mile while I hid behind a tree.

My walk with Barney was changing. He didn’t hear my footsteps anymore, so he’d waddle along with his body almost at right angles, bent in the middle, so he could see me at every step. He looked as though he had a perpetual stiff neck years old. If he turned and looked ahead, he’d have no evidence I was following him.

He could still smell a doughnut a block away and he remained bright-eyed and alert, even for almost thirteen years old. If you saw Barney at an event, you couldn’t tell his ears had failed him. It didn’t matter, he could still feel the love: Isn’t he cute? Isn’t he adorable? Isn’t he precious? I sometimes wondered if he could read lips.

I’d known and loved Barney for a dozen years, but since I’d found him by my front door, I never knew his exact age. It was one of the questions I had to field throughout his our television careers.

“How old is he?”

I’m not sure how many times I answered that question over the years. Not about me. About Barney. My answer changed every year, of course. Inquiries about my age, however, required a more consistent response. Heck, I said I was about fifty for more than a decade.

Each November when we made personal appearances at the local holiday gift and hobby show, I’d print up a sign with Barney’s age so I did not have to repeat the answer to literally thousands of fans who started each conversation this way.

Naturally, I did get other questions, and some downright bizarre ones over the years.

“Is Barney his real name?”

No, his real name is Alan, but we changed it because it just doesn’t work on TV.

“Is Barney your dog?”

No, he’s a rental. Pet him quick. He’s due back in an hour.

Honestly, I resisted those snappy retorts because they could suggest a lack of respect for the questioner, often just a sincere fan who wanted to make conversation. I was torn between the comic Dick Wolfsie and the pet lover Dick Wolfsie, Barney’s dad.

As Barney grew in stature (both in fame and fat) I started hearing things like, “Whoa,