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

Marcia took him to the vet they discovered a microchip in his neck. This is often a good sign of a vigilant, caring owner. Marcia had tried to contact the family, but they had not returned repeated calls.

The last thing I wanted to do was bond with the dog, then have to return him. I had a flashback to the early days of Barney’s celebrity when people would come up to me and claim that Barney belonged to them and until they had seen him on TV, they had no idea what had happened to their precious little (fill in any name). Most folks were just pulling one of our six legs, but it did raise a frightening specter of how I would have dealt with a serious challenge to my ownership.

Toby dragged me into the house, a good indication of my challenges ahead. It was about 2 PM, so Brett was still at school; Mary Ellen was at work. Toby sniffed about but was decidedly reserved, a touch skittish in his new surroundings. Suddenly, a cameo appearance by Benson, who simply eyeballed the dog and confirmed it was Barney—suggesting that reports of the beagle’s death had been exaggerated. Then as Benson moved on, he got the first delayed whiff of the intruder, just nanoseconds after the initial visual ID. This was enough to dissuade him of his original assessment. His head whipped around to scrutinize Toby. Wait! One more quick look. Hey, that’s not Barney. What are they trying to pull over on me? Now we had hair on end, growling, paw swatting. A cat hissy fit.

But don’t miss the point here. Benson had done a double take, an honest-to-goodness theatrical, Hollywood double take. Even Barney had never mastered that.

It was a tough weekend. Toby clearly possessed all the attributes that would make him a possible substitute for Barney. This meant that he was also a bit incorrigible. Could I make my family go through this again? Did I have to? Remember that I still had not been instructed by the TV station not to get another dog. I knew it in my gut, but no one had the nerve to tell me. Yet.

We were at a precarious point. We had all cozied up to Toby over those few days—even Brett, although that zeal would wane eventually. But did we really want another beagle? Well, I did. I was hoping this was not going to a household vote.

Within a week, that decision was made crystal clear to me by my boss. Crystal clear! Did I want the truth? Could I handle the truth? “No more dogs,” I was told. “Let’s face it,” said the news director, “there can never be another Barney.” You could read that with any inflection you wanted, but here was the bottom line: no more reporters with canine sidekicks. But what about me? Would I continue in the same gig without a dog?

As Cochrun later explained, he felt my value as a reporter on live shots was a waste of my real talent. He was a fan of my weekly newspaper column and wanted me to devote my time to feature packages, stories that are written and edited. “No more live stuff,” he said. I panicked. I was flattered he liked my writing, but five produced stories a week meant twice the work. I didn’t have to write or edit the live segments. I just did them. It also meant the end of the spontaneous nature of the show. I told my wife I was going to quit. She wasn’t a big fan of that idea, so I agreed to try it.

So there would not be another dog. How did I feel about that? I must admit, I have always thought it was the right decision, but for the wrong reason. The boss was correct. There would never be another Barney. Everything about Barney’s stardom, his impact on the community, was pure happenstance. He was a one-in-a-billion beagle, thrown into the ideal situation with this aging reporter who was just perceptive enough to capitalize on the pairing, highlighting the antic-prone tendencies of this special canine.

No, there could never be another Barney. But this decree was not about Barney’s irreplaceability, it was about getting a new, more “sophisticated” look for the news. That’s why they didn’t want my live daily shenanigans anymore. The new emphasis would be on news, weather, and traffic.

The truth is that the package segments were a success. I won awards and over forty of my pieces were nationally syndicated. But even that gig bit the dust, finally. Two years later, I was told that viewers didn’t have time to watch a thoughtful two-minute segment in the morning. They needed to get the basics and head out the door. Which is where I thought I was headed. The solution from the station: Put Wolfsie on live on the weekends. His shtick will sell there. People have more time to watch.

By the time I had been told that Barney was not going to be replaced, Toby had already become a member of the Wolfsie family. It was too late to turn back. We were stuck with him. Crass, I know, but the family choice of a dog—if we were voting—would not have been for a beagle. Mary Ellen had grown up with a collie. That was supposed to be our next dog.

I did have one call to make. I had to make sure that Toby’s previous owners—the ones Marcia had traced through Toby’s microchip—weren’t still looking for him. I called again and this time, damn it, someone answered. I did not reveal my name, which might have been an invitation to sell the dog, rather than relinquish it.

“I found your dog, Ma’am. A beagle, about three, a tri-color, male.”

There was silence for several seconds. I asked again if it was her dog.

“He’s a pain in the ass. He’s trouble,” she finally uttered. Little did she know that this was the kind