CH:11PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU

I am grown-up now, but when I was a small puppy my Mum taught me that I was to pay attention to what I was doing.

I remember the day. I was in the barn jumping over the prickly straw. I was sort of where I was not supposed to be, but I had seen a rat! I was following him. In and out of the straw, under a door, and then SPLAT! I fell into a big puddle of horse poop in one of the stalls. Was I a mess!! Did I stink! Can you imagine; I bet I looked awful. It seemed like ages that I sat stuck, but probably it was only moments until Mum found me.

By the scruff of my neck,she dragged me to the barn door and sat and barked and barked. Soon the farmer came and I was taken to the farmhouse, given a warm bath, dried off and went back to Mum and our nest .

Mum was glad to see me but I could tell – she was not happy. My brothers and sister were not in the nest, they were out doing show dog exercises. We were alone together.

As she always does, Mum wanted to talk to me. She said things like,

“I’m not very happy. What were you thinking? What could have happened to you, my little one?” She was not cranky. She was just quietly talking. She told me I must pay attention to where I was going and what I was thinking about.

This talk came back to me just a while ago, when I was out for a walk with a young man named Jetly as my dog-walker lady friend was away. We walked the usual way down the road, past the resort, and then, instead of turning around, we just kept going. I was getting tired. I looked up at him. He seemed to be paying no attention to me. We walked more, in fact he sort of danced. I began to whimper. No stopping. I sang “Howee, howee!” No stopping. I stopped and sat and looked at him. Do you know what I saw? He had wires coming from his ears to a yellow box on his belt. I soon decided he was listening to music as he feet were doing dance steps. No wonder he could not hear me, and didn’t seem to have noticed I had stopped. He dragged me up and I bumbled along, but my paws were getting pretty sore. I figured out that I had to be alert, watchful about what was going on.

We passed the golf course and I could hear the sound of a train. I had never walked this far before. Would we see the train? Would my dancing walker hear it? I had been over this road in the car with Girlie. I remembered the train went right on the road in a few places.

I started to walk as slowly as I could. I looked around. I listened. Were we near the train tracks? Then I heard a loud whistle. It seemed nearby. I sat down again. I could feel the earth rumbling through my body. Jetly started to tug me up again. Yikes! This was not good. This time I jumped on his leg and sat on his foot. He finally stopped and bent down and looked at me. I put my saddest face on, hung my tongue out, quivered and panted. I think he finally got my idea. He took the plugs out of his ears and bent down to me asking,

“What’s the matter? You tired?” Just then the train whistle blew again. Jetly jumped. Whoopee! He had heard it. Down the hill we saw the train speeding over the crossing. Red lights flashed, bells clanged. What would have happened if I had not got his attention? I think it startled Jetly. He bent down beside me. He saw that I was quivering and scooped me into his arms.

At last he decided we had come too far from home. Holding on to me, he put out his thumb to see if he could get a ride. I was so happy. I don’t think I could have walked much longer.

A red car sped past us. A silver car was slowly coming to us. It looked like it might stop. It didn’t. The lady driving was on her phone and I don’t think she even saw us.

Jetly kept walking.

A big white car came nearer and stopped. Inside was a Grandpa kind of man. He asked where we were going and so on. He agreed to take us. I quickly wagged my tail and gave a little “yippee!”.

Jetly jumped into the front seat and put me on his lap. Mr Grandpa didn’t seem to be pleased as he said in a stern voice,

“The little dog must go in the back”, and explained that if for some reason, the air bag came out it could hurt such a small dog. So I got settled into a great big space of my own. I snoozed and half listened to Mr. Grandpa and Jetly tell stories. Mr. Grandpa told a lot of dog stories which maybe is why he picked us up. We would be another dog story for him to tell.

In what seemed like no time, we were home. As Jetly and I got out of the car, Mr.Grandpa said,

“Jetly, I hope you do something for me. After today, can you give more attention to the world around you? Do you know if you had kept going you would have walked right into the train? You and the scruffy little one would have been squished!

Wasn’t this the same idea Mum had given me so long ago?

Perhaps you little ones who are hearing this story could really try as I did and help those around you to pay attention to the world.

Could you be a big help to those creatures and people who do not pay any attention?

Where I live lots of deer get hit on the road. I never have known who is not paying attention. Sometimes I get yelled at for barking. Nobody seems to get the idea that I am yelling at the deer who wander down our street without a care.

Love, Charlie Rose.

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CH:12 is the last chapter of this story and tells the best lesson of what happened to me when I took a stroll with a stranger who had no thought of taking me home!

Read "Stranger, Danger" next week!

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