A Few of My Favorite Things

By: Daisy the Labrador

My name is Daisy, long time reader first time writer. I wanted to share with you some of the things that make me wag. But first a little bio, I’m eight years old and in the prime of my life. I have a wonderful family that I look out for. I protect them from the water meter reader person and most outsiders that happen to sniff around my yard. We don’t allow strangers and cats in our yard. I feel it’s my job to alert everyone in the neighborhood if someone new comes around. I been told I do this task very well. However, my main job and life’s work is to retrieve birds for my man.

I know when he puts on those funny cloths and picks up that long stick that makes a big sound, I get to swim, another one of my favs, and retrieve what my man calls ducks. He points that stick, it then makes a booming sound and the bird fall into the water. This is my cue to get ready to swim when he says.

“Daisy dead bird.”

It’s a great life. Sometimes I go for more than twenty swims when my man takes other men with him. I love the smell of feathers in the morning.

My job is the best in the world. I get to do two of my favorites things, swim and retrieve. There are times when I retrieve birds that are not ducks. He calls them doves, quail, pheasant, and chukar. I love to retrieve anything at anytime but those chukars smell funny and the dove’s feathers tickle my nose.

My job’s more than just taking birds back to my man in the little house. I’ve learned to be gentle with everyone and not to bite the ducks to hard. It’s hard not to get cross with ducks when they sometime snap at my nose and pheasants are the worst downright dangerous if you don’t watch them every minute.

Sometimes I get in a little trouble with knowing what my job is and what it isn’t. My man threw a rag into a metal can and when I brought it back to him, he wasn’t pleased. Go figure and don’t take me to water unless you want me to swim in it. If it’s water then I swim, it’s a law of nature.

My man took me for a walk once in what he called a park. We were having a great time until we reached a rock that spit water in the air, I had to investigate, and I’d never seen a rock that didn’t like water. My man was not a happy camper when I shook the water off next to him, come to think about it he never is when I shake next to him.  I don’t know what he expects me to do with all that water.

After a long and exciting day on and around the water it is nice to get home and sleep at my man’s feet. When I sleep at his feet all is right with the world.

The real fun trips are when we stay overnight some place. I get to sleep in a new place unless we take a small home my man has on wheels that he pulls behind his truck. I like the little home, it’s full of sounds and smells that are new and exciting. We’ve even taken this home to someplace that was cold at night and had white, frozen water on the ground. Didn’t care for that much, too cold, I prefer warmer places. On that trip I got spurred by a pheasant which almost put out my eye. I’m a lucky dog.

My man really loves me he makes sure I’m safe when we go after birds. I travel in a nice warm home with a blanket, water, and a bone to chew on for the trip and he stops often so I can smell the weeds and mark them with my scent. On really cold days my man puts a piece of warm cloth over my back that fastens under by stomach it looks dumb but it does keep me warm.

I guess my favorite thing to hunt is ducks. They don’t smell bad and they don’t have big spurs on their feet. Once in a while it’s hard to tell the difference between my man’s plastic ducks and the real ones that are floating on the water. Sure glad I have a good nose.

The hardest job I have is collecting a big bird my man calls a goose. Man o man that’s tough trying to get that big a bird in your mouth. After a day of goose hunting I’m a tried puppy.

Let’s recap, I love swimming, retrieving, sleeping, travel, and chew bones. I don’t think I’ve left anything out and I don’t like the way chukars smell.