IT ALL BEGAN WITH A LITTLE GUY NAMED OLIVER BACK IN 2005...

This is an anniversary edition of one of our features designed to be uplifting every time it’s published..
Readlarrypowell.com has been presenting Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap every weekend since May 14, 2005. If my mathematic abilities have not abandoned me, that was 16 years ago.
This is a sweet photo of the first dog we highlighted, a little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Oliver.
He lived in Chicago with my middle brother Barry and his family — my sis-in-law Shelley and the kids, Aaron and Lewis. Barry, who was a lawyer/management type, said that coming home from the stressful office and sitting down to hold Oliver and chill with him was “dramatically more effective than expensive therapy.” Barry (that's him vacationing in Italy years ago) was gifted with the ability to express his emotions — I have cleaned up that quote to make it suitable for a family audience. And he would laugh at that sentence.
The benefit of having a devoted friend who becomes family explains why we’ve been doing this weekend feature all these years: Five days a week we write about animals in need or in trouble or in vet care or at peril because of the behavior of humans.
Two days a week, we post Let Sleeping Dogs Sleep and Napping Cats to help rescuers, shelter workers and animal advocates remember that the animals they’ve saved now have a great opportunity to celebrate life with humans they love. They might even celebrate by nodding off together while watching TV or while reading or while just sitting and admiring each other and the stars in the sky!

I've always thought Oliver’s photos displayed the wonderful trust that develops between humans and animals. That’s Shelley and Oliver in a years-ago afternoon snooze. And, you see a photo of Oliver leading Shelly and the boys (Lewis is behind his older brother Aaron who is behind hard-charging Oliver who may have been sniffing out the trail of Bigfoot! Spaniels are notoriously determined to succeed.) That was years ago.

In the years since May 14, 2005, many things have changed — presidents, masks (no longer worn just by doctors and hold-up artists), hopes for the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers (arrrgggghhh), new cars (gadgets a shadetree mechanic can’t fix cheaply), etc. You get the idea.
Like Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, “The only constant is change.” 

My middle brother Barry no longer is in Chicago. My baby brother Garry no longer is in “Branch” near Lake Lavon. They are, however, thought to be together in the Hereafter with Oliver and Calamity and other dogs and cats they befriended in their lives. (Sis-in-law Shelley took care of Oliver after Barry left us; Sis-in-law Brenita took care of Calamity and a passel of cats after Garry left us.)

I miss my brothers — but I REALLY miss our dogs and cats who have gone on — and both of my brothers would appreciate that emotion and endorse it. 

That dog in the photo atop this page is Calamity — a stray Heeler mix it took me nearly 2 years to catch — didn’t happen until she had a litter of pups under a neighbor’s storage shed and got all motherly. We found homes for all of the pups. The photo atop our daily report was taken as she and I traveled to an Operation Kindness Dog Day Afternoon so I could  introduce her to Garry and see if he'd like to have a good dog. This photo on the right is of the actual moment they met. It was love and devotion at first sight. The photo just above is Garry driving off with Calamity before I could yell, "Hey, wait a minute! I changed my mind!"
That big girl with her paws perfectly positioned is Annie, Calamity’s daughter — here siblings were adopted and we kept her. She’s gone on now, too -- maybe 15 when she left us for a better place.

And this is my Cocker Spaniel Inky — found him in Kiest Park and he was probably 3 months old and the only hair on his body was on one dangling Cocker Spaniel ear — he’d been dumped by someone who just didn’t want to pay to heal the mange.

Inky evolved from nearly hairless to the wonderfully coated Cocker Laureate of the State of Texas, sometimes writing poetry and sometimes doing impressions — for example, this is his impression of a tired-of-typing ol’ guy walking into an all-you-can-eat buffet and spotting a big, steaming platter of Mom’s Meatloaf Enchiladas with a side of Diet Vegetarian Refried Beans and Veggie-steamed Rice with a high-cal dessert of Sinful Ice Cream In the Big-As-Yer-Waist Waffle Cone. Inky knew me so well.
 He was with me and Martha for around 16 years. That’s a photo of him showing us how if you want to sleep on a couch, you don’t always have to use the cushions. Just claim the back of the sofa and spread out on it.

Martha painted that spot-on portrait of Inky — Starry Starry Inky, I call it. When I see the portrait, he is so alive it makes me cry.

Lots of families have changed since 2005 — old dogs and cats have gone on and new dogs and cats have moved in. You may have seen the transitions in your own lives. You discover a different warmth, but a warmth nevertheless.
What hasn’t changed is this: There are Sleeping Dogs and Napping Cats around the world and we are proud to show them to anyone who can click. They symbolize the happy love that connects trusting animals with human hearts.
Happy anniversary to all dogs and cats and other critters who’ve had the spotlight in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap for the past 16 years.


Dear Readers, it has been a heartfelt privilege to present your photographs and charm to anyone in the whole world who clicks on readlarrypowell.com. Oh, and that’s a photograph of Queenie the Border Collie who, during a record snowstorm in Texarkana, Texas, in 1961, herded her 3 boys into a corner of the yard and barked until Mom came onto the front porch and listened to Queenie tell her we’d been throwing snowballs at each other.
I don’t have a photo of Queenie sleeping — cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. I miss that dog, too. She was a great hug of a dog.

In the meantime, I have many other beings that I love mightily. Here are two of them sleeping back-to-back on the living room couch — that’s adorable Porche Noel, the dog of unknown origin who showed up on the porch at Christmas, and my personal feline advisor and confidante, The Senator. We’re not sure of his origin either, but we think he may be 25 or more years old and living on a pension and political donations for 2024. He apparently invests wisely. No other cat on the block has a Tesla and a driver. 
I would have been piled up with them, but somebody had to get up and take the picture.

[LARRY NOTE: Send photos of your sleeping dogs, napping cats or slumbering critters of any sort to dallrp@aol.com and we’ll post them in our weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. (That's my apprentice office cat Stevie Ray demonstrating how to wave away the paparazzi at an awards ceremony.) Regarding sleeping dogs, napping cats, etc., that we've published, we love ‘ em and we’ve never even met most of ‘em. Promote animal adoption by participating in this feature. And help insomniacs believe they can get some sleep, too, if they can only find the right place at the right time while pointing in the right direction on the right pillow fluffed the right way with the right amount of light in the right oom and the right amount of sound. So many things can go wrong. Envy — that’s what insomniacs feel. And that's a photo of wide-awake Oliver. Good boy.
—- Offer sleep ideas or waking thoughts by clicking on ‘comment’ below or by emailing dallrp@aol.com and put ‘WAKE UP, GOOFBALL’ in the subject line. —-