Be Like Boss

This is a story I once wrote for "Children's Church" and am thinking of using in the latest Cousin Marie Crazed Conception. Just got back from the Bender reunion -- we're all talkers and story-tellers and some of us write (one in-law has a novel looking for a publisher). Marie's idea? A round-robin email among the cousins, where we each add a tale. In any event, here's one of mine . . .

I have a dog whose name is Bossman because he’s the boss at our house. Boss is a very happy dog who actually smiles. From morning to night, his tail wags and he likes to dance and prance and play around.

In the morning, when I get up, one of the first things I see is Boss looking up at me, with that tail wagging about100 miles an hour. He loves to run and play and take me for walks. He’s also a very smart dog – did you know that dogs can understand about 400 words? Boss, for example, will lick my face if I ask him for a kiss. He runs straight to the garage when I ask him if he wants to go for a ride. If I say, “Let’s do laundry,” he runs to the basement door. He can stay or wait; go and come; sit or lay down.

He’s also quite fastidious – that means neat and clean. He won’t do his business in the house, or even in the back yard. Oh, no. Boss insists on a walk in the park as part of his daily routine and I clean up after him. When we take our walk in the park, I keep Boss on a leash and he knows that he is supposed to walk at a slow pace because there’s an old woman on the other end of his leash. He watches for action – he knows that even though rabbits and squirrels are tempting, they run much faster than he does and they can squeeze under fences or run up trees and get away, so he usually just gives them a hard stare and then walks on. Boss’ downfall, though, is tiny little dogs. I’m not sure if he likes them or if he’d like to eat them, so I’m always very careful when I see a tiny little dog in the park.

One day, as we were walking, I noticed another woman walking toward me with a tiny little dog – one of those dogs that looks kind of like a mop with feet – you know the kind of dog I’m talking about? I tightened my hold on Boss’ leash, but he surprised me – walked right past that mop without even looking. I relaxed, and then it happened. Boss whipped a U-turn, wrapped the leash around my feet, knocked me to the ground and made a beeline for the mop. The mop dog’s owner grabbed him and started screaming at me to get my dog. I scrambled to my feet and ran to grab Boss and save the mop from certain destruction. I pulled him away from the little dog, scolded him and then took the free end of the leash and gave him a good spanking. Now, the mop’s owner screamed at me again: “Don’t hit him. He doesn’t know what he did.” “Oh, you are so wrong,” I said. “He knows exactly what he did.”

Well, Boss looked at me, put his tail between his legs, bowed his head and walked slowly behind me all the way home. As you can probably imagine, he was scolded all the way home. When we got in the house, he crawled into his cage, laid down in the corner, put his head down on his paws and refused to look at me. He was one sorry looking dog.

But, here’s the good part of the story, and the part I want you to remember. In a little while, after seeing how sorry he looked and almost worrying because he was so quiet, I talked to Boss in a normal, un-scolding voice. His ears perked up, his tail started to wag, the smile came back and he was soon his normal happy, cheerful self. Boss knew that he had done something bad and he certainly acted sorry, but once he realized that I still loved him, he didn’t dwell on it. He went back to being his old lovable self.

So, instead of being “Like Mike,” be like Boss: When you’ve done something wrong, and have shown that you are sorry, remember that Mom or Dad or God or your friend has forgiven you, that they still love and care about you, and that you’re okay in their book! That is definitely something to perk up your ears and wag your tail about!