Duke’s Review
Today’s post is brought to you by guest author, Duke the Dog.
(It’s possible one of our volunteers helped. Just a little.)
Hello, my name is Duke.
I’ve been asked to write a column describing what it’s like to be a guest at the Blue Mountain Humane Society. I’m excited to do that (more on the word “excited” below), even though I can only type about 5 words per minute. You humans probably don’t realize how difficult it is to type without opposable thumbs. And I don’t like to complain, but the internet connectivity here in my kennel is only fair.
A little background about me: I was born in humble circumstances, one of a litter of six. I have only vague memories of those early days: a general sense that Mother was exhausted and that meals were noisy, chaotic events – everybody shoving and scrabbling for access to the meal. I loved my siblings but honestly, they had the table manners of Vikings.
When it was time for me to go out on my own, I landed with a family in the area. They were kind people, if a little bit preoccupied with things that weren’t me. When I was about 11 months old, it became apparent that they really didn’t have time or bandwidth to accommodate a 60 lb dog as intelligent and energetic as me (I say this with due modesty) and I was surrendered to the Blue Mountain Humane Society.*
I’ve been here at BMHS since early November. I believe that I’ve got the longest tenure, even though I am one of the younger dogs on site. But Mother told me that I’m an over-achiever.
When I arrived, I developed an unfortunate reputation as an Excitable Boy (from the Latin excitare, meaning to rouse or call out). Some truth to that, I guess. I have energy to burn, and being only one year old, for Pete’s sake, I might have been injudicious about jumping up to greet people and pulling on my leash. But I’ve been working on that…and with help from staff and volunteers, I’m developing impulse control at a rate nobody expected from me a few weeks ago.
And, truth be told, I’m improving the volunteers, too. Just today, working on our leash walking manners, I trained a human to deliver a piece of hot dog to me every time I planted my butt on the ground when he said “Sit.” The guy isn’t as handsome as I am, but he’s a lot smarter than he looks.
Overall, I give the BMHS very good marks. Everybody is extremely kind, my rations arrive regularly, and other guests are interesting kennel mates. My only criticism is that I was a little disappointed by the wine list.
But having said all that, I’m looking forward to my forever home. I was made to care for a family of humans, and I can’t wait to get into harness (as the huskies say) and go to work on that project.
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*Nota bene: I’m not saying this was a high point in my career, but I got past it more easily than you humans might expect. We dogs are largely philosophical about life’s ups and downs. A misfortune that might cause you to embark on a course of antidepressants and therapy is, for us, a setback that can be rectified with a little love. And some tasty treats never hurt, either.