Labrador Lessons: Lesson 1

I own a Labrador Retriever mix, a dog who is the inspiration for a canine character (or two) in my new novel. When the real dog barked in the middle of a sentence tweak or the fiddling of a paragraph, the fictional dog barked, too. When one spied a dastardly preschooler circling our block on a tricycle, pig tails a flyin’ without care, honor or worry, both dogs raised their hackles and the barking commenced. When one had to pee…well… One must have a sense of humor in these things.

Currently my left knee and leg are half asleep, accommodating said Labrador Retriever rescue mix. Her day consisted of waking up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, needing to use the grass facilities of the great out back yonder, garnering my attention when setting up said blog, and wondering when her contractual num num installments were due. Our conversation went like this:

“Ahem.”

“Yes, dear. How may I help you?” (I said lovingly.)

“I get five more carrots today or I walk.”

“You can’t walk. You don’t have your harness on. Here, let me get it…”

Dog response: “Hilarious, human. I’m serious. More num nums or…I’ll show them your early drafts. The ones you think you hid away so well.”

“You…you wouldn’t,” I respond, holding my breath, eyes darting about for a squeaker toy of distraction.

“I can and I will, lady. And I want organic carrots, the baby size. Oh, and a banana and some peanut butter wouldn’t hurt you every now and again,  would it?”

And so we can learn much from Labradors. If we have half of their focus they give to food, we will get far with any of our life goals. Novel publishing included.

Labrador Lessons to be continued. Welcome to my blog. No, don’t sit there…that’s the dog’s spot.