My cousin, who lives on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, fears one day he’ll answer a knock on the door and find Jim Cantore standing there.
Although he’s already weathered more than a couple of hurricanes in his beach house, my cousin knows the presence of Cantore, the Weather Channel’s harbinger of really bad weather, would mean he’s in for the big one.
I, on the other hand, fear the day Cesar Millan, knocks on my door. The “Dog Whisperer” from the National Geographic Channel is apparently summoned only in times of dire canine distress. And having lived with dogs my whole life, I’m a bit too proud to make the call myself. So the summons for help would have come from elsewhere.
Perhaps, I fear, from my dogs.
Because, after all, according to Millan, a native of Culiacan, Mexico, the majority of dog problems are actually people problems.
“That’s what I’ve always said,” my springer bitch Spot recently told me.
“It’s you, not us.”
“Exactly,” her studly little brother Jem agreed. “It’s your boyfriend, girlfriend.”
“Get a clue,” Spot growled at me. “You praise us when we’re bad and discipline us when we’re good.”
“And when are you good?” I snapped.
“I’m calling the Dog Whisperer,” Jem told her as he lifted his leg on the couch.
“Oh, yeah?” I said as I reached for the phone. “I’m going to call that woman in Bozeman who makes jewelry out of baculums.”
“Huh,” he asked as he sniffed himself. “What’s that?”
“It’s a bone found in the sex organ of most male animals,” I told him. “You’ve got one. For now anyway.”
Babs Noelle makes necklaces and earrings out of gold, silver and platinum casts of the bones. She won’t say where she gets them, but she keeps the bones in tiny white boxes in the back of her shop.
Noelle’s creations sell for up to $3,000.
“I think it’s about time I started wearing some bling,” I told the dogs.
Jem stared at the floor. Spot closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Then the telephone rang.
“Maybe it’s Jim Cantore,” I told the dogs as they followed me into the other room. “I read where the Weather Channel is offering a service where Cantore will call you when a storm is coming.”
“There’s not a cloud in the sky,” Spot said. “Maybe it’s Cesar Millan. He must have heard about your necklace.”
Jem raced to the phone.
“Socorro! (HELP!),” he whispered as he picked it up. “Socorro, por favor. (PLEEEZE)”