Big Dogs

Roddy has had a succession of dogs—a couple of them have been among the largest of breeds—a Newfoundland retriever once, and the first one I remember, a St. Bernard named Brandy. He told me once that he regularly fed Brandy some relatively inexpensive dry food, which he consumed in prodigious amounts. For some reason he decided to feed him some Alpo (a premium priced, canned dog food heavily advertised at the time) to see if he liked it. Brandy eagerly gulped down a half dozen cans without hesitation. Roddy started doing the math, and said to Brandy, “I hope you enjoyed that, because you won’t be getting anymore of it.”

One day, Roddy and Don Scott were sitting in the living room, replacing electrolytes after a game of golf. Brandy was lying on the floor in front of them and elected to choose that moment for some peri-care, and in the usual canine maneuver, lifted his leg, moved his head down to the area near his tail, and began tonguing the goods. Roddy remarked, “I sure wish I could do that.”

To which Don replied, “go ahead—it’s your dog.”

I thought it was highly original and extremely funny at the time, but I've come to suspect it might not have been original—or comedians are stealing our material. I still find it funny.

Brandy also had a physical quirk in that every time he sat down, his equipment would come to attention. It would retract in a couple of seconds but, being a big dog, his was very noticable.

When Roddy had company over (fellow ATCers, mostly—women wise to the world wouldn’t risk entering the Den of Depravity), and knowing what would happen every time, whenever Brandy would come in the room and sit down, Roddy would say, “Brandy, stick your dick out.“

For a long time, the lads were convinced he’d trained Brandy to do that. They were unsure how, but they were confident they didn’t want to know.

Last updated: 20 January 2011