The Magazine: The World According to Junior
Name: Junior Watson
Age: None of your business – did I ask you your age? No.
Weight: 80 pounds of rock-hard, all-guy muscle.
Color: Chocolate and proud of it.
Distinctive Features: Incredible intelligence and literary flair. If you mean like marks or something, there’s that scar I got on my left ear when Mister Muggsie, the Wilson’s little yappy terrier-type mutt grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go.
Next of Kin: My son JJ (the folks call him Boscoe, but to me he’s Junior, Jr. – JJ). I remember two things about his mama – she was awful pretty, and her people left the back gate open. Never got her name, though.
My Very First Column – May/June 2001
Name’s Junior. Junior Watson. I’m a male Labrador retriever, chocolate in color. I’ve been asked to write a sort of semi-regular column about what it’s like to be a dog and in particular a Lab so that maybe you’ll understand your own dog a little better and in the process, maybe I’ll even make a comment or two about what I have observed about people.
Now, the first thing you need to know about me and the rest of us is that we are the way we are because we were bred to be a special type of hunting dog – a retriever. That editor fells ran his little story about us Labs by me, about why we are the way we are, and he hit the sunspot on the couch with the hunting thing. Way back when, we couldn’t do our job until our human partner did his, our job pleased him, and we found that really made is happy, too, please you, that is. And I’ll also mention at this point that a lot of the time, making you people happy is about as easy as Hercules cleaning those stables.
The second thing I’d like to point out is that we are pretty fair con artists, but you probably already knew that already. I mean, what do you do when we want a little tidbit at the table, look at you longingly when you’re on the couch and there’s room for us on the end, or when we come bouncing up to you with a tennis ball? You know what you do – you give in. We know you’re doing to, you know you’re going to, we know you know you’re doing to, and you know we know you’re doing to.
One of the ways we con you is with the eye-contact thing. Us Labs make eye contact better’n any animal that ever lived. I mean, a cobra’s got absolutely nothing on a Lab who is completely aware that you have a little scrap of steak fat on your plate you don’t plan to eat. We could bore two holes right through you. And you give in. We know you’re going to… etc.
By looking at your eyes, we’re studying you. The books say that we’re looking at you for ways to please you, but that’s only partly true. The other part is that by studying you, we get to know what we can get away with because it’s in our nature to push a little here and nudge a little there – and your eyes tell us if we’re making progress or it’s time to clear out because we went too far.
Like, at my house, when I decide to take a little slurp or two out of the john because it’s hot outside and I’m thirsty, and it’s too far to walk in the utility room where my water bowl is and I come out of the bathroom and there stands the Boss and she’s looking at me, well, I can’t help it – none of us can – I just look guilty because I am. We may be con artists, but some of us don’t lie very well. On the other hand, some of us do, no different from the people we live with.
At my house, there’s the Mister and the Missus and a couple of kids – teenagers, both girls. Me ˋn the Old Man are outnumbered from the git-go, so we try to stick together. That’s how I got this here name. The Old Man said with me around, at least he wasn’t right at the bottom of the heap. He says he’s “Hasn’t Got and Chance Senior,” and I’m “Hasn’t Got a Chance Junior.”
He and I try to stick together, like, when he’s trying to fix something around the house and getting hooted on by the women that he don’t know what’s doing and he should call a repairman, I help him out by bringing him stuff I know he’ll need. Other day, he was trying to fix the leak in the dishwasher, and I was bringing him stuff that would help. I bought him a tennis ball and a house slipper, and last week’s issue of the TV Guide, and I know he appreciated it because he kept sayin’, “Thanks, Junior; thanks, Junior; thanks, Junior” like he was in a sort of trance, which he acts like a lot anyway, especially in the mornings when he’s trying to get into the bathroom while the girls are getting ready for school.
I guess that’s about enough for the first time. Besides, the afternoon sun is coming through the front window right now, and when it hits my end of the couch, I’m there. See you next time.
