Innerviewing you poocheroos is never, ever boring. EVRY pooch has an innersting story. Wait till you hear this. Emmett Roche-Woolnough lives by the ocean. (I got to ride in my first elly-vader, which gave me tingly paws!) Emmett’s an almost-8-year-old rescue border terrier/Jack Russell mix. He’s on the small side, but with a Big Personality. AN he’s Very, Very Verbal.
Emmett bounced, barked and wagged his way through the Wag-and Sniff an the innerductions.
“Hi!” (Bounce! Bounce!) “Come IN!” (Wag! Wag!) “You’re Bonzo, right? I’m Emmett!” (Barkedity-bark-bark!) This is my Mom, Claudette. I call her Miss! (Bounce! Wag! Bark!) “My Dad’s Jeff. I call him Sir!” (Bark! Bark! Bark!)
He zoomed into the dining room. His Mom said, “Sit, Emmett!”
“Sit!”
“Sit!”
“Sit!”
“Sit!”
I sat. My assistant sat. Emmett’s Mom sat. Finally – Emmett sat.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “I can’t wait to tell you my story. It’s uh-MAZE-ing!”
“Go for it!” I replied, pencil poised.
“OK, so, one night Miss had this dream. In it she hadda dog. But not her kinda dog. She’d only ever had Big Dogs. She didn’t even LIKE liddle mop dogs. But the dog in the dream was liddle, an scruffy, with sticky-uppy ears an whiskers, and wirey, every-which-way hair. AN its name was Emmett.
“’What the woof?’ she probly thought. ‘Why would I dream about such a silly liddle dog?’ Then Sir, who was travelin,’ sent her a pickshur of a guy he’d met, with a dog just like in her dream. She reelized it was A Sign that there was a scruffy liddle mop dog out there somewhere waiting for her. So she went online an came across a pickshur of Her Dream Dog, inna big field, at a place in L.A. called the Dexter Foundation. You can probly guess who it was.”
I nodded.
“Yup. My name was Angus, if you can buhleeve it. Dexter had rescued me from a high-kill shelter, where I knew my number was almost up. But, deep down, I felt My Forever Famly would find me somehow. An they DID. I gotta new name, too – Emmett – cuzza Miss; dream. I like it better, anyway.”
“Looks like your life is Totally Cool Kibbles, now,” I ventured.
“You bet your Dog Biscuits! My first couple years with Miss an Sir, we lived in Cali. Then we moved to Ireland. (Sir directs movies an TV, so we go to lotsa innersting places.) I loved Ireland. I even got my own passport! After Ireland, we spent six months in Spain. That was fun, too. In Winnipeg, Sir let me visit his set an watch. I was Very Well Behaved.”
“Cool Kibbles!” I exclaimed.
“When we got back to the States, we sorta accidently found Vero Beach, which we all agree is perfect for us. Then Miss sent a pickshure of me to the lady at the high-kill shelter who was nice to me, to show her how my life had changed. Miss says the lady was so happy for me she cried. It’s a human thing, I think.
“Here I get a daily leash walk. An I LOVE the dog park. I always announce myself with a buncha hello barks, then off we go, running.
“But I don’t care for the Ocean. It’s always sneakin’ up on me. I bark at it, an it runs away, but it always comes back. I do love humans, an fellow pooches. Miss’ an Sir’s frens like me, too: Gail offered to dog-sit me when Miss an Sir hafta be away. Then Andrea an Valerie volunteered, too. So I have a dog sitter Waiting List. I think I must have cuh-RIZZ-muh, don’t you?”
“Posi-woofin’-tively!” I responded.
“When we got back from Ireland, I went to this Really Great Trainer in Toronto. Miss says when I got back, I was un-buh-LEE-vibly well trained – Best. Dog. EVER!!”
“Woof, Emmett, that’s Crunchy Dog Biscuits!”
“Yeah, well, it was. But Miss isn’t what I’d call Super Strict. So now I’m basically back to pre-trainer behavior. (When Miss is really, really, really Serious, she shakes a can of pebbles, which drives me nuts, so I know I have No Choice.) But, mostly, I’m puh-lite an stuff, but I consider commands, like ‘Sit!’ for example, more like, you know, suggestions.”
I had kinda noticed that. I changed the subject. “Um, what’s you favrite food?”
“Miss’ homemade chiggen an rice with vegetubbles. I also get ONE kibble treat when Miss has to go out. She says, ‘I’m going out. You stay here. Be a good boy. Guard the house. I’LL BE BACK! Here’s your treat.’ She always tells me how long she’ll be gone, so I know it won’t be forever.”
He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell Miss but, whenever I visit Nana, she has a secret bag of treats for me. I love visitin’ Nana.”
“My lips are sealed,” I promised.
I’d also noticed that Emmett had been dragging a soft, floppy mat around, so I asked about it.
“When I hadda have a tooth pulled, I chewed on this (he gave the well-munched mat a liddle nose bump) to make my mouth feel better. An I sorta got in the habit.
“Before you go, I wanna show you this,” Emmett said. His Mom was holdin’ a watercolor painting: a row of colorful houses along a rocky shoreline and one happy liddle pooch with wirey, every-which-way hair.
“It’s ME on the beach near our house in Ireland. One of our neighbors painted it special for me. Our house is the pink one.”
Emmett was so happy an fun, I wish I coulda stayed longer.
Heading home I was thinkin’ how some things are just s’pose to be: like, because of a dream, a scruffy liddle rescue pooch went from Dire Circumstances to a Forever Famly, with fun, an travel, an chiggen-with-vegetubbles.
Till next time,
The Bonz