Archer Perry is a rescue pooch: a spunky, spiffy-looking terrier-mixture, the kind that looks a bit like a light brown loaf of bread with some white around the face.
Archer did a buncha barkin’ when his mom opened the door.
“Hello,” I said in my usual frenly way. “I’m Bonzo an this is my assistant. You are Archer, I presume?”
He gave my assistant some frenly wags, woofs an wiggles. Then he planted his sturdy liddle self right in front of me an squinted.
“Do you have ID?” he said, standing tall an scowling as much as his bright black eyes an fluffy liddle face would allow. I thought it was a very cute face, but I wisely decided to keep that observation to myself. I knew the look he was going for was definitely not “cute.” Probly more like “Napoleon.” I gave him my card.
He looked at it, then at his mom, probly to see if she approved of us. She did. She gave him a pat, offered us a seat an scooped him up in her arms, where he remained for much of the innerview.
“Nothing personal, Mr. Bonzo. I take my job as Protector of Mummy Very Seriously. Her name’s Katie. My dad’s Roccou. I call him Rocky. Call me Archie.”
“A pleasure. Call me Bonzo. I understand you’ve had some Majorly Soggy Dog Biscuits an Dire Circumstances in your life. Just share whatever you’re comf-tubble with.”
“I don’t mind woofin’ about it so you can see how lucky I an all Rescues are to find Loving Forever Famlies.”
I opened my notebook.
“As long as I can remember, I was a stray, livin’ on the mean streets. Eatin’ whatever I could scrounge, which sometimes was ol’ dried-up worms on the sidewalk. Or acorns. An drinkin’ water from puddles. Even now I hoard acorns, outta habit. The Animal Services Humans chased me all over Polk County an Orange County for weeks. Then one day when I wasn’t payin’ attention, they nabbed me an brought me to the shelter.
“I had some health issues. Plus, I was older, about 6. An I had the cheerful personality of a turnip. So nobody wanted to adopt me. Then, cuz the shelter had an overflow of pooches, I got put on The List.”
“Oh, no!” I said, aghast. All us pooches know about The List.
“Yeah. I figured I was Toast. Then, just one day before I was s’pose to take The Long Walk, some humans from Florida Little Dog Rescue swooped in an saved me. When I got checked out an tidied up, they put my pick-shur on their website, an that’s where Mummy saw me. She thought I was cute. She was livin’ in Mouse Town then, an lookin’ for a pooch to adopt. First she hadda show she could be a Good Pet Parent. Which she did. Then we met in the parking lot of Petsmart, and That Very Day she got to take me home. I didn’t even know what ‘home’ was. I was shy an anxious, an had just recovered from 6 weeks of Heartworm treatments, which are Seriously Not Fun, I can tell you.”
“Woof!” I was almost afraid to ask, “How’d things go?”
“Not great for a while. Mummy was kind an loving, but I’d lived on the streets all my life. That’s all I knew. I was shy an anxious. Once, when I’d been there about a week, I bolted out the door and took off. Mummy searched everywhere. She put flyers on poles and called Little Dog Rescue. She was FRANTIC!
“The Rescue human told her to put my bed, blankets, toys, food dishes an one of her T-shirts right outside the front door that night. She did, an next morning, she opened the door an there I was lookin’ like nothing had happened. But something HAD. I had ree-lized I liked havin’ a roof over my head, my own bed, my own food, toys, best of all, Love an Snuggles. I discovered I’m a Lap Dog!
“It took about 6 months for me to realize my new life wasn’t going to disappear. I met lotsa humans an other pooches, an I reel-lized I LIKED ’em. Specially liddle humans.”
“Any special frens?”
“Sure! Since we moved here in 2017, there’s my Shihtzu cousins Ollie an Louis, they live on the island with Grandma Cindy. An my pooch neighbors, Sushi, Snoopy an Buddy.”
“What kinda stuff do you like to do?”
“Runnin’s my FAV-rite. I’m fast as a dart. I also like swimmin’ an floatin’ on my raft at Grandma’s. An sun-bathing. It’s not like a regular bath, though. You don’t hafta get wet. Also, hikin’ with Mummy an Rocky is Crispy Dog Biscuits. I have my own backpack so Mummy can carry me when I’m pooped. I also love CARS. I stayed with Mummy an Rocky at Cool Kibbles places called Bee-N-Bees in Cocoa an the Mouse Town an My-Amee. There weren’t any bees, tho, which I’m glad about.
“Ooooo, an watch THIS! Mummy an me play Fetch with my favrite toy, my squeaky raccoon ball.”
It was a liddle brown ball with a raccoon face an tail, an, Woof! was it squeaky! Archie was great with the fetch part, semi-great with the return part. In between, he was a leaping, twirling, pouncing, bouncing blur.
I asked him about his favrite foodstuffs.
“Nice Crunchy Carrots! An, when we go to Sweet Kiss, I get a duh-lishus gelato. I also love chiggen jerky an, on special uh-KAY-shuns, Delly Meat.
“Then, at night, I curl up in my very own snuggly bed, safe an sound, right next to Mummy an Rocky. An I know they’re always gonna be right there when I wake up. I think I’m the luckiest dog in the whole world.”
Heading home to my Gramma an Grandpa, my own comfy bed, an my lovely evening dish of yoghurt, I was feeling pretty Dog-Gone lucky myself.
