This week I met my first Great Pyrenees. Her name’s Sophia Winger and she a tall, beautiful pooch, all white, with a thick, wavy coat, a really kind, wise face, these amazin’ eyelashes, an the fluffiest, longest tail I ever SAW. It ackshully brushes the GROUND. She looks like the Queen of All Dogs.
We met in her front yard, which is Way Cool Kibbles, with a wunnerful garden where Sophie loves to play an hang out.
I introduced myself an my assistant.
“A great pleasure, Mr. Bonzo. I’m Sophia Winger. You may call me Sophie. I’m almost 3. This is my Mommy, Bobbie. My Daddy, Dick, is inside. If I seem a bit tired, it’s cuz I had a long day at the vet yesterday. I got a cut-an-style, anna mani-pedi, so I’d look my best for my innerview,” she smiled a sweet smile, “an also three shots, which made me a liddle barfy an outta sorts.”
“I completely understand,” I replied. “An you look beautiful, Miss Sophie,” I had to add, cuz she did.
Opening my notebook, I asked, “How did you find your Forever Family?”
“My Mommy an Daddy have this good fren, Sheff, in Quincy, whose Great Pyrenees (Sophia and Pirate) hadda lidder – my lidder – an he invited Mommy an Daddy to come see us. So they did. Well, you can imagine how irresistibly adorable we were, all 10 of us, like fluffy white bowling balls. I was the liddlest AN the smartest AN the cutest, an I knew they were my Forever Famly right away – so we picked each other!”
“Mommy an Daddy named me Sophia after my pooch mommy, but, when we go to Humiston Park or Downtown Friday, Daddy likes to introduce me by my FULL name – Sophia Jean Claudia Annemarie Jureau Winger. He thinks I look like a French lady an, guess what? I found out us Great Pyrenees are mountain dogs, from the Pyrenees Mountains between France an Spain, so I guess I am sorta a French lady. We had a very important job: to guard stuff. Mostly sheep. I do have an in-stink to guard stuff – like the yard, the grass, the trees, the flowers, the cat. An, if I ever met any sheep, I’d totally guard them.”
Note to self: Remember to ask about the cat.
“Any pooch pals?”
“I’ve got tons of pooch pals, like Molly, she’s a Labradoodle. Anna buncha others. Sometimes, they come play with me in my yard when they’re on their walks. I also have a pooch pal up in at-LANNA: my nephew Jack, he’s a black-an-white mix who was adopted by my human brother, Scott. I love when we can visit.”
“Do you like swimmin’?” I randomly wondered.
“NO. I am a MOUNTAIN dog, NOT A beach dog. Well, the sand’s pretty fun. But NOT the water.”
“Whaddya like to do? What’s a typical day for you?” I inquired.
“I play in my yard a lot. There’s a fence, but I’ve never ackshully SEEN it. Daddy says it in-VIZZ-ubble. I don’t know what that means, but I always somehow know how far I can go. It’s miss-TEARY-us! I even taught them to shake paws. Oh, an I taught myself to shake paws. Humans really like that, I have noticed. I’m good at snoozin’, too. I like to nap on Mommy’s an Daddy’s feet. Mommy got me three lovely dog beds, but I usually sleep on the nice cool floor. Or the carpet. Oh, an I excel at sheddin’, although Mommy an Daddy don’t seemed real impressed with that.
“I have, like, millions of toys, which I NEVER chew (except for the tennis balls). My favorite’s the Kong, cuz Mommy puts Milk Bone treats in it. I also love chicken jerky.”
“Did I hear you mention a cat?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Come on in. I’ll introduce you to my BFF, Catrick Swayze.”
Inside, Sophie called, “Hey, Catrick, come meet Mr. Bonzo.”
A slender tuxedo cat appeared and ran right over to Sophie. The two rolled around briefly, then settled together on the carpet. Catrick was mostly black, with that white tuxedo bib, white paws an big green eyes. Very handsome.
“A pleasure, Catrick,” I said.
“Likewise! Mommy spotted me at Petsupermarket and – that was IT! She called Daddy and said, ‘Bring the crate. We have a cat.’ My first birthday’s gonna be May 5, but then I was just a tiny kitten. Soon as I saw Sophie, I went straight to her. We’ve been besties ever since. I didn’t even ree-lize I was a cat an she was a dog til way later. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“He’s right,” agreed Sophie. “It doesn’t matter one bit.”
With that, Catrick became focused on batting feathers attached to a long stick. Sophie’s Mom had fetched a plaque, and Sophie said, “Look, Mr. Bonzo, Mommy found this at a charity event. Isn’t it perfect?”
The plaque said, “This home is filled with Kisses, Wagging Tails, Wet Noses and Love.”
“It IS perfect, Miss Sophie. Absolutely perfect!”
To My Fellow Pooches: You’ve probly noticed that your humans are behavin’ a liddle different these days, right? I sent out a coupla Woofmails an found out it’s cuz there’s this really Dismal Dog Biscuits duh-zees that’s makin’ humans real sick all over the world, an it’s changin’ a lotta the stuff our humans usually do. ’Speshully like gettin’ together with each other, which we all know they really, really like to do, but now they can’t cuz this duh-zees can sneakily jump from one human to other humans. Dogs can’t get it, though, Thank Lassie. What all us pooches CAN do is to be the Best Pooches Ever for our humans. Like, don’t whine, don’t bark at those squirrels for 4 hours, don’t chew furniture, don’t dig unnecessary holes in the garden, stuff like that. Just give ’em lotsa extra snuggles, an kisses, an nose bumps, an show ’em you love ’um an uh-PREE-she-ate ’em. (An if you can figure out a way to remind ’em to wash their paws, that’d be good, too.)
Till next time,
The Bonz
