Watch Your Tongue

I’m not sure how much u know about me…I am a Jack Russel-Beagle-Heeler. That means I have a very LOUD hound dog bark & aaaall the energy to bark for hours and hours. I bark like nobody’s listening! Acorns fall from the trees – I bark. The wind blows open the screen door – I bark. A stick snaps under my paws – I bark. 

Back in the shutdown days, when all my hoomans were home and the only thing to do was go for walks – I didn’t have too much to bark about. But now that we are “back to normal”, all of a sudden, I have A LOT to say. I am not sure why I feel like barking so much, but I share my thoughts about every little thing – even if my hoomans don’t really care to hear it.

The other night, when I went on my afterwork walk with my hooman, the owls were hooting. I DESPISE owls. They hoot “hoohoohoo cooks for you”.  GRRRR! Hooting owls really get my hackles up. I was so annoyed – I just started barking. I wasn’t quite sure where the owls were – so I decided to bark while running through the woods. When that didn’t silence the old birds, I stopped running and barked up to the sky. My echoed barks made me sound extra fierce – so I barked even more. Still the owls kept asking “hoooo hoooo who cooks for you?” GRRRRRR!

Because I was barking so much – my hooman started barking too, “QUIET! QUIET! QUIET!”, she barked. So I barked back at her because her barks were making me nervous. I added a little jumping around for extra effect. After a few minutes, it started to feel like a fun game and I began really enjoying myself. I forgot all about those irritating owls. 

Then I noticed my hooman did not look happy. So I stopped barking. She stopped barking too. In fact, she stopped talking to me all together and walked back to the house. When she was drying off my muddy paws she said I was being too loud. She told me I have to learn how to be quiet. She said that she doesn’t like my barking all the time. 

This got me to thinking…there is a time to bark and a time to be quiet. Sometimes I get confused between the two, but I am learning how to take cues from my hoomans. I realize I do not need to give my opinions on every little thing. It is not easy, but I am trying to speak up when I have a good reason or something important to add to what is going on around me. 

So friends, as we head into another week…let’s try to watch our tongues and use our voices for good. Adding to conversations verses just barking. Sometimes when all we do is bark, our hoomans stop listening. If we really want our voices to be heard, we should speak up when we have important things to say and save all that extra yapping for the birds. 

Thanks for joining me on my canine adventures. I will bark at ya next week (see what I did there)! 

Your friend,