Bart

A rescue person contacted us once and told us about a golden retriever she had seen in the San Bernardino shelter. She was in a run with a black Lab mix, and when she was there, both dogs were coughing. Kennel cough is quite common in Los Angeles area shelters, and often it is a sign of much worse, so I got down there as soon as I could.

It wasn’t soon enough. The golden had died, and the black Lab mix, which the shelter had named Maverick, was quite ill. I rescued him and took him to our vet, who immediately put him on a regimen of powerful antibiotics and told me that it was fifty-fifty that he’d make it.

He made it, and after a month in the hospital came home. Debbie had renamed him Bart, and he fit right in with the gang. He sleeps in the middle of the living room, which along with my office is the area of highest dog density. But he really shows little interest in interacting with them; it’s more like he’s dogwatching.

All of our dogs except for Louis are frequent barkers, but Bart puts them to shame. He’ll start barking before six in the morning, with periodic outbursts throughout the day. If we pet him, even briefly, he will stop. If we didn’t, I don’t think he’d ever stop. He’s the only one of our dogs that doesn’t bark as a result of some event or visitor or noise or other dog doing it.

Bart barks because Bart barks.

He seems fine with that.