Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog

by Dave Barry

When we got him, he was a pampered indoor dog who had one of those professional poodle hairstyles with the ridiculous poofs, including one on his head. I believe Mistral was embarrassed about how he looked, as if he’d gotten invited to a dog party where the invitation said, “Come in a wacky costume!” and he was the only dog who did.

In those days there was a TV show called Lassie, wherein every week a boy named Timmy—who was, with all due respect, an idiot—would get stuck in a well, or fall into some quicksand, or get into some other dire predicament. Then his faithful collie, Lassie, would race back to the farmhouse and bark at Timmy’s parents—who were not themselves rocket scientists2—until they finally figured out, with some difficulty (“What’s wrong, girl? Are you hungry?”), what Lassie was trying to tell them, even though this happened every single week. So they’d go rescue Timmy, and everybody would praise Lassie for being a hero. To my mind Mistral was way more heroic. Any dog can run around barking. But show me the episode where Lassie eats Timmy’s brussels sprouts.

Stage One was, I opened the back door, which led to the patio. This patio was surrounded by a screen enclosure, which is necessary in South Florida to prevent the mosquitos from making off with your patio furniture.

Getting back to the white sofa: the first night we had it, as we prepared to go to bed, Michelle reminded Lucy about the Official Policy by pointing to the sofa and saying “NO!” another thirty or forty times. Lucy listened attentively, looking at Michelle with a somber and alert facial expression. There is no question she was getting Michelle’s message (specifically, “No”). Nevertheless, the next morning, we realized that somebody had been on the sofa, and all the evidence pointed to one suspect, whose name you have no doubt already guessed: Bubbe. No, seriously, the evidence pointed to Lucy, as follows: Exhibit A: There were seventeen million tiny black hairs on the sofa. Exhibit B: These hairs were arranged into an arrow pointing directly at Lucy. Exhibit C: Lucy, who clearly had just jumped off the sofa, was on the floor with her head down, not making eye contact, which is the technique she uses when she wants to render herself invisible to humans.

I turned seventy, which means I’m the same age as Lucy is in dog years. She and I are definitely getting up there. If our lives were football games, we’d be at the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter. If our lives were movie credits, we’d be way down at the bottom, past the assistant gerbil wrangler. If our lives were Cheez-It bags, we’d be at the stage where you hold the bag up and tilt it into your mouth to get the last crumbs.

According to the DNA analysis, one of Lucy’s parents was a boxer; the other was half dalmatian and one-quarter each chow chow and golden retriever. So Lucy is half boxer, a quarter dalmatian, one-eighth chow chow and one-eighth golden retriever. Or, to put it in technical dog-breeder terms, she’s a BoxMatianChowTriever.

Not all dogs are like this, of course. Some dogs don’t seem to like anybody. These are usually your very small dogs, the kind that have to be transported in special dog-holding purses, because if they were ever to be set down on the ground they would be carried off by spiders.

The dogs are even worse, always yapping and growling, as if they’re some kind of badass carnivore of the animal kingdom, instead of basically a paramecium with fur.

Make New Friends. (And Keep the Ones You Have.)

Don’t Stop Having Fun. (And If You Have Stopped, Start Having Fun Again.)

“Wild Thing” is one of the simplest garage-rock songs there is; it requires almost no musical talent. But we never got it right, and without naming any names I would have to say that the problem was Roy Blount.