Man's Best Friend -- Both Audio and Text
If you don't love dogs, you probably won't like this poem...my wife and I DO!
Can’t believe I used to think - when I was very young - that dogs made poorer pets than cats and birds!
It wasn’t long before I learned how awesome dogs can be…which changed my mind and made me eat my words.
Birds are nice to listen to - and cats can be amazing - and I was always pleased with those we had…
But I have found that neither work as hard to earn your love…especially like the one that saved my dad!
Katie was a setter, with a shiny copper coat and hazel eyes that took your breath away.
Still a pup the year my father’s tractor lost a tire…which overturned and - there my father lay.
Pinned beneath the steering wheel, half a mile from home, Dad could barely breathe and would have died,
But stroking Katie gently…knowing if he hadn’t told her to save his life she'd need to leave his side,
She’d have never left…he whispered, “Katie, go for help,” then doing as he told her, off she flew.
Knowing no one else was home, she ran to Harvey Michel’s…the nearest friend of father’s that she knew.
Katie’s frantic barking made it clear to Mr. Michel that something very terrible was wrong.
Racing to his pickup, Katie knew he’d understood, and as she headed back, he trailed along.
Lying there, unconscious, Dad was very badly hurt, and had his dog been anywhere but there…
And had she not obeyed and found him someone who could help…then quickly led the way to show them where,
Gordon likely would have died, and had he passed away, we never would have known of Katie’s deed.
Dad would often claim she was the “smartest dog alive,” and every time he did, we all agreed.
Add to that the fact that at a ski resort in Denver, a toddler was abducted by some guy
Who’d told her folks he'd sell her back for fifty thousand dollars, and, if they didn’t pay…he’d let her die!
The family’s German Shepard, with his nostrils to the ground, went racing to a van out on the lot.
Colorado troopers stormed the van and saved the child, and fifty years was what that bastard got!
I read where, up in Idaho, while camping with his fam’ly, a four year old had wandered off the site,
And after searching long and hard, but unsuccessfully - and fearing that he’d not survive the night -
State police showed up to help with search dogs - turned them loose - and half an hour later he was found.
Cold and scared, but still OK, another missing child was rescued for its fam’ly -
by a hound!
And everyone in Bozeman knows what happened when the Baxters found a big old grizzly in their yard.
Who raced out to chase him off - from where their kids were playing? Ron and Peggy’s big old St. Bernard!
And Merle and Hattie Roth ‘ll tell ya’, “dogs are man’s best friend.” At sixty-five, old Merlin had a stroke.
Falling nearly thirty feet while working in their silo…both his back and collarbone were broke!
Merlin’s Cocker Spaniel saw him fall and had the savvy to race off to the house and fetch his wife.
Busted up the way he was - according to the doctor - the dog, by what he’d done - had saved his life!
Ain’t no doubt about it, dogs are dynamite communicators…really great at letting people know
If and when there’s something wrong, then leading those who’ll help to where it is they need for them to go.
Cats, of course, can often make magnificent companions, and birds are nice to look at, and to hear… But next to dogs -- like those I’ve mentioned -- far as I’m concerned…..
cockatoos and tabbies can’t compare.
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