If I had one-tenth the persistence of my little dog, I would be telling the Nobel judges in Sweden or whatever European paradise they hang out in, that I have plenty of their awards and don’t need anymore. Because I would have achieved unbelievable things.
In the summer of 2018, there was a party in our backyard and number of partygoers roasted weiners for their hotdogs over our firepit. One weiner slipped off its wire rod and fell onto our brick patio. I don’t know how long the little tube steak remained on the paving stones but I am going to assume it was eventually picked up and tossed into the garbage.
“No it wasn’t,” insists my dog, who knows for sure that that weiner is somewhere on the patio and he is just the guy to find it. For the past 18 months, every time he is let out into the yard, he heads straight for the patio and for as long as he is allowed to remain outside, he uses his nose as a vacuum to sniff up every scent he can possibly sniff. He knows the weiner is there. He can smell it. It’s only a matter of time before he is eating it.
I love this little guy’s pluck even though, on a cold night as I stand in the garage doorway waiting for him to finish his weiner search and consume mission, complete his bedtime pee and come back into the house, I can get impatient and start shouting non-Nobel-prize-like words.
Eighteen months, five times a day, hour after hour, the search goes on.
Drive me crazy as he might, Toby is my hero.
©2019 Jim Hagarty
