| Author | Message | ||
     Captpete |
Shopping with Dewey Dewey and I are nearly constant companions, and I say nearly because if there is a dumpster within a half-mile, he’s drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I guess it’s just his Boonie Dog heritage. But with him it’s a double-standard. If, while he wasn’t looking, I ran off to do a little dumpster diving, he would be frantic. Unless he’s on a dumpster mission, I must be within eyesight at all times. The other day a friend of mine commented, “Dewey doesn’t let you get more than two feet away from him, does he?” That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but illustrates the bond he formed with me when he was a little, two-pound puppy I held in the palm of my hand. That bond is also evident when he hears thunder or a gunshot. Dewey is one of those dogs who is terrified of those sounds and starts trembling in his tracks as soon as he hears them. He trembles, but he doesn’t stop in his tracks; instead, he comes to me as if we were connected by a big rubber band, for I am his protector. If I happen to be sitting, he tries to climb up into my lap, and burry his face in my armpit. The ostrich syndrome. But at fifty pounds, we don’t do that anymore. We have reached a compromise, and the deal these days is that his back legs must stay on the ground. Any time I’m on a shopping run, Dewey rides shotgun, mostly with his head out the window, or if he’s had a rough day, with his head in my lap. Thievery is a local custom that’s been around since the day Magellan landed here on Guam, when the locals stole everything they had on the boat; they even started pulling the nails out of the hull. Having a bad-assed dog sitting in your parked car is the best deterrent there is to thieves, so Dewey is more than just good company on these shopping trips. And he takes his watchdog job seriously. There’s about a two-foot perimeter that he establishes around the car, and if anyone breaches that invisible line, he goes postal on ‘em. I leave the windows down enough so that he can get out of the vehicle if there is an emergency, and if his boundary is violated, his head comes out of the window as if he were a jack-in-the-box on steroids, barking and snarling with the sound track of about a three-hundred-pounder. He’s a big talker when he’s in the truck. Sometimes, it’s a little embarrassing. If I’m parallel parked for example, and the owner of one of the cars next to me returns from shopping, Dewey waits until they’re almost to the door of their car, crossing that line, and then he cuts loose. I’m not sure if my car insurance covers heart attacks; I hope so. Seems I’m all the time apologizing to people for Dewey making them almost pump their bilges on the spot. But this story is about that bond I speak of, and one particular day when I was shopping for stuff at our new Home Depot here. It’s a wonderful place, Home Depot, and especially here on Guam, where it’s so hard to find what you want any time you go shopping. They opened for business a year or so ago, and when they did, it raised the standard of living for the whole island. It looks just like any Home Depot back in the States, monster building, and monster parking lot to go with it. I’m not one of those shoppers who will drive around for fifteen minutes trying to find a parking place that saves me that extra ten feet of walking. I figure I need the exercise, I can’t afford that extra gas, and why waste the time? I usually park out on the fringe of cars in the lot, which also lowers the risk of Dewey stopping some other shopper’s heart. And as usual, I leave the windows of the truck down far enough that Dewey can escape if he has to. He’s pretty good about staying in the truck. He knows that I always come back, so he either sits in the driver’s seat, or curls up and takes a nap while I’m gone. On this particular day, the weather was typical, and by that I mean bright sunny skies with gentle trade winds out of the northeast. I parked in my usual spot, all by myself just beyond the collection point for shopping carts, told Dewey to “stay” as I was leaving the truck, and hiked to the front door. I use the word hike because I had parked maybe a hundred yards from the entrance. Maybe even more. I had a big list that day, so spent a lot of time going up and down the aisles, and of course there was the obligatory half-hour or so browsing the tool section. I was in there quite a while. But eventually, I was done and was busy checking out at one of the automatic locations where you scan your own items one at a time and then bag ‘em up. When I was just about through scanning and ready to pay for my stuff, I felt something bump my leg just below my knee. I looked down, and there was Dewey. He was standing next to me and had just bumped me with his nose, something he often does to get my attention. And he was soaking wet. What in the world? When I looked up I noticed a group of about five or six employees who were all smiling and watching us, so to impress them, I told Dewey to sit, which he did immediately. And then the story started to unfold. It turns out that Dewey had been in the store for probably twenty minutes or so, going up and down the aisles, sniffing, I reckon, and looking for me. He started collecting this little group of employees that was following him as he went along. Now that he had found me, these people were just standing there, amazed. I finished paying for my items and chatted with the employees for a little while, who all agreed this was just about the damnedest thing they’d ever seen at Home Depot, and then I headed for the door to return to my truck. I still hadn’t figured out why Dewey was so wet, but when I got close to the exit doors, it became clear; it was still raining way too hard to try to get to the truck. There was probably some thunder that came with that squall that was still dumping a bunch of rain on us, and Dewey had gotten scared, climbed out the window, and came looking for me to save him. And then I started thinking about what he’d accomplished. First he had to find his way to the front doors, and I know he wasn’t following his nose in all that rain. He must have watched me from the truck when I walked to the store. The doors don’t stay open, so he had to hang around until someone caused them to open by either coming or going, and then get through them before they closed again. And lastly, he had to find me in that humongous building full of people. And at some point, he had to start ignoring that growing group of people that was trying to somehow convince him he shouldn’t be in the store and now was the time to leave. I was pretty proud of that soggy little guy standing next to me. But all those thoughts only took a second as I was heading for the door, and that’s when the last act of this little play ensued. An older man (like me) who was obviously head of security approached me and Dewey. He was as nice as he could be, and informed me that dogs were not allowed in the store, and the next time I would have to leave Dewey outside. Well, I was only twenty feet or so beyond that group of employees I had been chatting with about their following Dewey through the store, so I put on a little show for him. “Hey… don’t blame me, man. I didn’t bring him in here. You’ll have to discuss it with him. Just ask those people over there. I had nothing to do with this,” and I pointed to the group of employees that was listening to all this. And of course, they were all on my side, and started retelling the story in my defense. And then I just stood there, waiting for the rain to let up, and basking in the glory: I was Dewey’s Dad. . | ||
| Reepicheep |
Yay! Story Time! | ||
| Blake |
Get him a nice orange and white Home Depot bib to wear. I bet they won't mind so much then. Excellent story as usual. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
personally i think that story could be made into a childs book. "dewey, the _ _ _ _ _ dog" nice little read cap. | ||
| Prior |
Welcome back Pete and thanks for the read! Alex | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Pete, I really look forward to your stories, this one was a jem as usual. Once again, thanks for taking the time to share with all us landlubbers. Brad | ||
| Captpete |
Dewey says thanks to all for cheering him on.  | ||
| Ezblast |
Bravo Capt! | ||
| Littlebuggles |
Thanks, it's nice to read something uplifting here, some of the board has been a bit moody lately. -Mike |
