This is a wishful edition of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap, our long-running weekend feature.
Ever wish for a Cocker Spaniel?
Perhaps you’ve noticed that strip of photos of what appears to be a young Cocker Spaniel.
I have had many favorite dogs and cats in my life. Some of ‘em aren’t even my critters — they live with relatives and friends or maybe I met ‘em in a
pet store while shopping for my own mutts and cats..
One of my all-time favorite personalities — human, cat or dog (especially human)— was my longtime friend Inky, the Cocker Laureate of the State of Texas. I found him nearly naked from mange in Kiest Park in Dallas and brought him home. He lived with us for a little more than 16 years, if my memory serves. I love him still — sometimes I see his shadow in a hall or in my dimly-lit office. And he is the reason I’d love to have another Cocker Spaniel — though I know I have enjoyed life with the ONLY INKY who ever lived.
So what inspired this train of thought? — Though in my case its probably closer to a “go-cart of thought. It’s this: I was sitting in a recliner in the living room and I looked up at Stevie Ray Treeboy, the zany cat I rescued from a claw-buried grip on a flimsy branch of a Mimosa tree. He has grown up zanily.
And, there he was, nodding off on the back of the dogs’ couch and I looked at him admirably — all grown up and adorable. Then I spotted the Cocker Spaniel.
And only then did I realize the only other animal on the couch was Wendy Louise Wagstaff Arden, the dog my ToughCookieSpouse Martha personally rescued off the Mean Streets of Dallas.
Wendy has what can only be described as “artsy ears.” She had shaped her brown ear to look — through my lenses — like a Cocker Spaniel puppy.
Even when asleep, she is able to shape her ear into the form of a Cocker Spaniel puppy.
Clever girl. She helped me get over that wishful notion of driving to the Dallas All-Night Cocker Spaniel Emporium and asking for a new set of Inky Model Spaniels. Very expensive, you know.
Worth every dime.
[LARRY ASIDE: If you can’t find a great Cocker Spaniel in your nearest city park, you might want to click on dfwcockerrescue.org and see if there’s a dog that’ll be a good fit for you. Remember, Cocker Spaniels’ need to be groomed regularly and some of them need their own TV remote so they won’t get stuck with the stuff humans watch. I think I’ve just channeled my intellectual, poetry writing Cocker Spaniel Inky. That’s his portrait, as painted by my artisticspouse Martha. Inky wrote:
Raise up the brush!
Paint my stars to be a joy!
I’ll always be Dear Inky!
Your Clever Cocker Boy!
— Inky, The Cocker Laureate of the State of Texas
[DEAR READERS: Tell us about your slumbering dogs and/or snoozing cats and we’ll spotlight them in our weekend edition of our long-running weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. Email photos and info to [email protected].]
