Hi! Callie here. I got this fun book for Christmas, and I thought I’d tell you and your dog about it, so your dog can decide if it wants to read it too.
To fully appreciate the humor of this book, you and your dog probably need to have read, or at least be familiar with, “The Dangerous Book for Boys,†by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. Its premise is that boys don’t learn to do good old fashioned “dangerous†things any more, because they are so sheltered from the world. Things like building a battery, building a tree house, going fishing, studying famous battles, skipping stones, and stuff like that.
So Rex and Sparky wrote “The Dangerous Book for Dogs,†with the idea that dogs, which used to fend for themselves in the world, are now pampered and have lost the fine art of doing “dangerous†dog things.
The “The Roots of Barks†chapter describes a few of the “180,000 barks currently in use.†I really like “Ruhruhruhruhruh,†so I’m going to work on that one. But they left out “wuuf,†which was the very gentle way my predecessor, Jamie, (Fred’s previous Golden Retriever) said, “I could use a little help here.†One of “Jamie’s Rules†is “Don’t bark if a ‘wuuf’ will do the job.
The chapter on swimming really got my attention. Especially the part that says you should always wait at least fifteen seconds after a meal before swimming. But I don’t think of swimming as being “dangerous.†I love to swim. I just learned last summer, and I’m really looking forward to practicing next summer. Here’s a short video of me learning to swim.
[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKIL0V1ExnE]
It never occurred to me that the “doggy paddle†was invented by dogs. I guess dogs are pretty important sometimes, aren’t we?
I studied the chapter on “Cats†very carefully, because I’m having a tough time getting along with Fred’s cat, Okie-Dokie. For some reason, Okie-Dokie doesn’t like it when I sit down on her. Rex and Sparky say that cats are just plain “weird.†I totally agree. The other thing I learned is that I should wait until Fred isn’t looking before I sit on Okie-Dokie.
Part 2 tomorrow. Bye for now.
Callie
