Dog Stories

The Harper Chronicles: My Energy and Curiosity Sometimes Cause Trouble

/ kellyfbarr / 4 Comments

Hi Everyone! I’m back. Mom decided she liked letting me tell my own stories better than her telling them. She likes my style. lol

I have a lot of energy and I am very curious about things I see, especially things Mom tells me I can’t have. I also have some anxiety issues and don’t like a lot of noises. However, there are some noises that don’t bother me, like the plastic bags I am playing with in the picture above. Mom was sitting at the dining room table working on her writing, so I was walking around the dining room seeing what things were in that room. I found this whole bag of plastic bags, grabbed it, and took it into the living room. Then I started pulling all the bags out of the bag they were in. I was having lots of fun until Mom came and took the bags away. Before she did, I grabbed two of them and jumped onto the loveseat, the only piece of furniture I’m allowed to be on, and was chewing on them. She came to get them quickly — she said they’re a choking hazard.

In the above picture, I have an empty plastic water bottle. Mom, Dad, and their two grown sons all drink from these, then they throw them in a small box in the house, and when that’s full, they dump the bottles into a box outside and once a week a truck comes and takes them all away. But, Mom and one of the grown sons throw bottles from a distance and sometimes they miss. They always crunch them before they throw them, and when I hear that crackling noise, I watch and wait, and if the bottle hits the floor, I dash to get it. When I get it, I run into the living room with it and sometimes I lie on the floor and chew on it, and sometimes I take it up on the loveseat to chew on it — that’s where I am in the photo. Sometimes Mom lets me have it for a few minutes before she comes to take it away. Dad doesn’t like when she does that, but she says it doesn’t hurt me and she always watches me and takes the bottle before I get the label off because she doesn’t want me to choke. They don’t usually have the lids on them, so I’m not sure why the one in the picture has a lid on it. Actually, it’s not crinkled much either. Maybe I got this one when there was still a bit of water in it?

Anyway, these are some of the things I like to do sometimes when I want to get rid of some energy.

The Harper Chronicles: The Wagging Tails

/ kellyfbarr / 2 Comments

Trouble seemed to be a daily problem for Harper, until her mom bought a trumpet and gave it to her. Harper took to blowing the trumpet even better than she liked tromping through snow. She practices everyday and has become quite good at playing her shiny instrument.

Harper told some of her friends about her trumpet playing, and a few of them convinced their moms to get them instruments too. Now Harper has a band. They’re called The Wagging Tails. The band consists of a German Shepherd named Rin, who plays base guitar, a Golden Retriever named Trixie, who plays acoustic guitar, Harper on trumpet, and a yellow Labrador Retriever named Maurice, who plays drums. They get together at Maurice’s house twice a week for two hours. They spend the first hour writing songs and the second hour playing.

When they started playing in Maurice’s mom’s garage, the neighbors complained and howled, but as the band’s talents began to shine through, a crowd started gathering in the driveway to listen and dance. Now the band is the talk of Lancaster County and parents book The Wagging Tails to play at their childrens’ birthday parties.

Harper’s cousin, Louie, got jealous, but Harper said, “You get to go hunting with your dad to burn off your energy, so what do you have to be jealous of?”

“I don’t have any shiny instruments or toys to use to go hunting. I just wear a bright orange vest and tramp through the fields and woods. But it is exciting when I flush a rabbit out of its hole and Dad shoots it.” Louie said, with a grin.

Harper rolled her eyes. “I’ll take playing music and watching people dance over luring a rabbit to its demise anyday. My band’s music makes people happy. I like looking around the crowd at all their smiling faces.”

Her bandmates all barked their agreement. Harper’s dream is that the above painting of The Wagging Tails will one day be more popular than that old photo of all those dogs playing poker.

NOTE: This story is a work of fiction. Though some of the characters are real animals, names, characters, and incidents in this story are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, incidents, animals, or persons — living or dead — are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.