This week, I got to yap with Emma Rose Foley, a beaudiful Fox Red Lab who grew up on the Jersey Shore and just moved here last fall.
Emma Rose greeted me an my assistant with enthusiasm. “Hey, Bonz, come on in. Just put your stuff anywhere. This my Mommy, Jackie. My Daddy Ray’s restin’.”
“It’s great meetin’ you, Miss Emma Rose,” I said. “Whaddya think of Florida so far? Real different than Jersey, I imagine?”
“You’re not woofin’,” Emma Rose said. “But I’m gettin’ use to it. My favrite thing in Jersey was going down the sho-wuh, an playin’ in the ocean. I can still do that here, only it’s really warm, which feels sorta wee-ud.”
“I can see where it would.” I opened my notebook. “So tell me about your life before you moved. How did you an your Forever Famly got together?”
“It all started with my human brother, Ryan. See, he was an Only Child, and he always wanted a dog. But Mommy and Daddy had Never Had A Dog either, if you can buh-lieve it, and they weren’t intrested in gettin’ one. In 2011, when Ryan was gettin’ ready to go to college, he STILL wanted a dog, so Mommy thought of a Clever Plan. She said IF Ryan got a paid internship (that’s like a job for college kids) AN made the Dean’s List (a very important human writes down all the students who get Super Good Grades), he could have a dog. See, Mommy figured he’d NEVER do it. But he DID.
“My litter was born in May. Our Mom was a Yellow Lab an our Dad was a Chocolate Lab, so I turned out this cool red color. So Mommy an Ryan came to meet all of us. Mommy’s fren told ’em if you put a puppy on its back an it lets you rub it’s tummy an doesn’t squirm around, that’s a Good Sign. Which, as we all know, is TRUE. Well, even though I was just a tiny puppy, the minute I saw Ryan, I knew he was MY human. I followed him back and forth in our big pen when he was checkin’ us all out. An I let him rub my tummy. So Mommy called DIBS on me and, when I was 8 weeks old, they came back to collect me. It was the 4th of July an, Guess What? the whole country was so happy I’d found a Forever Home, they had a Big Party. With FIREworks!”
“Woof! That is Crispy Dog Biscuits!” I exclaimed.
“Totally. There were a few tiny bumps in the road while I was learning The Rools. Back then, I was A Chewer. One time, I was protesting my crate, an I sorta chewed up some stuff – just a few liddle things: all the chair legs. An the table legs. An the kitchen molding. An the baseboards. I was trying to make a statement. I guess I did, cuz Mommy started sleeping on a blow-up mattress next to me. Now, I sleep with Ryan or Mommy.
“Here’s what’s funny,” she continued. “When Ryan and me were ready to leave for college, Mommy was like, ‘Wait! What? Emma Rose is familiar with THIS PLACE. She should stay HERE!’ Akshully, Bonz, I think she didn’t want me to go cuz she’d miss me. Anyway, I ended up stayin’ with Mommy an Daddy. I’m a Mommy’s Girl, mostly. An I see Ryan a lot on breaks. (He’ll always be my No. 1 Human.)
“So I spent my entire puppyhood at the Jersey Sho-wuh. Me an my across-the-street neighbor an BFF Rossingol (Rossi I call him) grew up together. My other bestie is Angel, a mixture. She’s ‘Aunt’ Julie’s dog. We had 6 acres to play in an we spent a lotta time down the sho-wuh. It was wunnerful. Sometimes there was snow. Lotsa snow. I loved playin’ in the snow.
“Then Mommy an Daddy decided to move down here. Mommy got tickets for me an Daddy and her onna PLANE. I didn’t have any idea what a plane was. I found out it’s this big metal sorta funny-looking bird with big wings an no feathers. It’s called uh-LEET. It made scary sounds. I thought it was gonna eat me. I shook like a leaf the whole time we were in it. I sat in my seat with Mommy’s sweater, an Mommy held my paw across the aisle. But I kept shakin’, so she sat on the floor an cuddled me, which made me feel a liddle bit better. When we got out, we were down here. I don’t know how that even happened, but I’m not going near one of those birds ever again.
“The first night here we stayed inna big, pooch-frenly place call Costa d’Este, right smack on the sho-wuh. I was still a little freaked out from that bird, so Mommy asked the garden human if she could use the hose, an she squirted me down an dried me off, which made me feel much more ruh-laxed.”
“Are you gettin’ use to Florida?” I wondered.
“Pretty much. I get lotsa walks, an Mommy an I play catch. I’m excellent at catch. We go down the sho-wuh a lot, of course. Up in Jersey, me an Mommy’d drive to Hoboken in our Beemer. I loved those car rides. These days, I’m more of a homebody. After all, I’ll be 63 in Dog this May.”
“I NEVER woulda guessed, Miss Emma Rose.”
She smiled.
Heading home, I was thinking about how sometimes us pets, an their humans, have to make changes we’d rather not make. Like leaving the Jersey Shore, or stopping furniture munching. Or, like now, not being able to do a lotta things we wanna do. But sooner or later, if we don’t get all Grumbly and, instead, do those Cool Kibbles Dog Things that make our humans feel better, stuff usually seems to work out.
Till next time,
The Bonz