Family News: Lucy Speaks Up

The Indignities of the Season

by Lucy Chamberlin
Canine in Residence

A time of joy and merrymaking. A time of wassail and wine. A time of love and family.

But for me, a time of woe.

My story begins a few short weeks ago, when Daddy and That Woman put up, in the center of our family area, a large tree, and hung lights and dog toys all over it. Jingling toys, balls hanging from string, little merry figures clearly made for chewing. A veritable monolith of dog delights, and some edible candy canes thrown in. Then under the tree they lay more toys: colorful, rattling boxes covered in crinkly paper and ribbon.

Oh, what a joy!

And then they told me not to touch it.

But I knew they were joking, so I ate a few of the jolly toys hanging down for me and one of the presents, just a small one in a little velvet box.

Did that garner a zealous response! I was, in a manner of speaking, in the dog house. I heard Sarah say -- referring to Santa's well-known catalog of nomenclature -- "Lucy is not on the Good List."

This is only the latest in the Sad Chapter of Indignities suffered by Yours Truly in this House of Melancholy. All of the other puppies, bipeds, get to sit at the table and eat such foods as the beef, the pork, and the turkey, the eggs and b. (to steal a phrase), and the bread and fine cheeses. I eat dry kibble from a tin bowl on the floor in the corner. When I seek to join the family and contribute to the domestic communion, by resting my front paws on the kitchen table and burrowing my snout in the nearest soup bowl, I am roundly scolded and sent to the garage. I even have heard That Woman referring to me as "a maniac." A person of my careful breeding and woolly beauty!

I love dearly to eat the delicious snacks Mother Nature has provided off of the wild Southern Pecan tree in the back yard, I so enjoy the dark and moldy shells and bitter innards. (No matter that I later leave the contents of my stomach on the cream-colored shag carpet in the master bedroom, you and I know that small discomfort is well worth the crunchy delight of such dainties.) That Woman apparently doesn't agree or share my passion for pecans or my sanguine view of those gastronomic leavings, and has been keeping me from eating the pecans, going so far as to sweep them right out of my mouth. Oh, I hear her talking about it being "for your own good," but I know better. Where is the love?

Ah, my friends. I know that my lot is not a lonely one, for when we go to the dog park, we all reference the same sad story... the favoritism for the two-legged puppies, the torturous trees of untouchable delight erected in the homes at Christmas, the lack of beef.

Stay strong, Canine Companions. It is a hard lot, but....a walk?

Did she say "walk?"

Yes, yes, yes!...I love walks!...happy happy happy happy...