By Tony Deyal
I was at the University in Canada, hanging out with some of my colleagues in one of the lounges, when one of them, looking at me, shouted, “Doggone it, Tony.” I was upset and made it clear, “Listen, man, I never saw your dog. If it’s gone somewhere, it is not my fault.”
Instead of responding, they all started laughing and shouting, “Doggone it, doggone it, Tony.” I was incredibly angry, and as I started to tell them things about their families, one of them laughed loudly and told me, “Tony, ‘Doggone it’ is what we say when we are angry but can’t use bad language. My mother was upset because her sister sent her a letter, and she couldn’t find it. But because we were around, instead of saying ‘that God damn letter,’ she said, ‘Doggone it. Which one of you did that?’” I thought for a moment and then asked, “So what I did to have you all shouting at me ‘Doggone it’ to me? What I did to you?” They all shouted, “Shut the door Tony, before a real dog come in and bite us!”
However, the dogs that I know are not as bad as many of the people. As the writer, Mark Twain, noted: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” In fact, the little dogs we have in the house will bite other men if they feel that the men would hurt us or are trying to come into our house. This is only part of why dogs are, and will always be, our pets. Unfortunately, not everyone understands what that means.
For instance, when Bill Clinton told a friend that he had got a dog for his wife Hillary, the friend said enviously: “I wish I was, lucky enough to make a trade like that.” In a way, it is like what Groucho Marx, the comedian and writer, quipped, “Outside of a dog, books are a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” If that happens, don’t give up. The secret to life is to handle every situation like a dog: If you can’t play with it, eat it or bury it, just leave it alone and walk away. If you’re outside, they will remain friends with you.
I think of the story about the man who entered a country store and saw a sign saying, “Beware of the Dog.” He looked around cautiously, but all he could see was a tiny dog darting madly from one corner to the other. The man laughingly asked the owner, “Is that the dog people are supposed to beware of?” “Yes,” the owner replied. “He sure doesn’t look dangerous to me,” observed the man and asked, “Why did you put up the sign?”
The owner explained, “I had to. People keep tripping over him.” This is better than fighting. It seems that a little squirt of a man walked into a bar with a dachshund under his arm and was immediately made fun of by a burly giant with a Rottweiler. “What a stupid, ugly excuse for a dog,” the big bully guffawed. “Long nose, no legs. Ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.” The little man mumbled, “Yes, but he’s real mean.” The big man forced a bet on the meek little man. “Fifty dollars,” he boasted, “that my Rott can finish off your poor mutt in two minutes flat.” The two animals lined up nose-to-nose, and the short, ugly one lunged forward and bit the Rottweiler in half. “What kind of a dog is that?” asked the amazed Rottweiler owner. “Well, before I cut off his tail,” the little man said, “he was an alligator.”
Like the owner who boasted to his neighbour, “My dog is so smart that every morning he waits for the newspaper delivery boy and, instead of biting him, he takes the paper from him and brings it straight into the kitchen for me to read.” The neighbour replied, “I know.” Mystified, the man asked, “How?” To which the neighbour answered, “My dog told me.”
This might sound like a bit much, but talking dogs are not all they’re cracked up to be. A man tried to sell a dog to his neighbour for five dollars, even though it was a talking dog. “I don’t believe you,” the neighbour replied. “There’s no such thing as a talking dog.” The dog looked sadly at the neighbour and sniffed dolefully, pleading, “Please buy me, kind sir. This man has been cruel to me. He never takes me for a walk. He buys me the cheapest dog food and he makes me sleep in the garage. He doesn’t realise what a super dog I am. A year ago, I swam from Jamaica to Trinidad and appeared as a guest artist at the prestigious Kennel Club show in New York.” – “Wow! You’re right. This dog can talk. So why are you selling him so cheap?” asked the befuddled neighbour. The owner shook his head and said, “Because I’m tired of his lies.” To which the dog responded, “Don’t listen to him. There are no lying dogs, only lying owners.”
A woman saw a dog go into a butcher’s shop. “What is it today?” the butcher asked the dog. “Pork?” The dog shook its head. “Beef?” prompted the man. The dog shook its head again. “Lamb chops?” the butcher queried. The dog shook its tail furiously. The butcher wrapped up two lamb chops, gave them to the dog, and the dog left in a hurry.
The same thing happened the next day, and the woman was so intrigued that she decided to follow the dog out of the shop. The dog went to a house, got on his hind legs, and rang the doorbell with his nose. A man opened the door and started to shout angrily at the dog. The woman was aghast. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she chided angrily. “That is the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. He goes to the butcher, selects your dinner, and brings it home for you. He even rings the doorbell. Yet you treat him so badly.” “Maybe,” the man answered, explaining, “but this is the third time this week he’s forgotten his key.”
A man walks by a table in a casino and passes three men and a dog playing cards. “That’s a very smart dog,” he says. One of the players retorts, “He’s not so clever. Every time he gets a good hand, he wags his tail.
* Tony Deyal’s mother called him from his cricket match to ask if he had seen the dog bowl. He replied, he had seen it run and jump, but if he knew it could bowl, the dog would have been on the team.
