Labor Day

September 7.  It’s Labor Day in the US and Canada.  A day to honor workers and the labor movement.  AND a day OFF from labor for many people.  Including my human.

In our house, we dogs work hard every day.  Here are just SOME of the jobs we do….

We provide wake up service every morning.  Heaven forbid our human should sleep in, even if she is on vacation.  It is OUR job to get her up.  Even if it involves giving her a fat lip in the process.

We are exercise trainers – making sure our human gets out EVERY day – taking us for a walk. 

We are cleaners – consuming any food crumbs we find on any surface.  We do an exceptional job of cleaning our food bowls.  Repeatedly.

We are groomers – licking each other, and ourselves, and I also provide specialized hair styling service by trimming Frodo’s ears. 

Of course we are security guards, alerting our human to any mysterious sounds, (generally in the middle of the night) and to the presence of those threatening bunnies any time of day. 

We SOMETIMES provide delivery services by carrying the newspaper home from the road – but that one is hit or miss.  The paper often ends up in the ditch.

Let’s see.  What other work do we do?  Paxton provides garbage disposal services – eating anything.  Mostly things he shouldn’t eat.  

We are welcome greeters - saying "hello" to anyone who arrives at our home - including our human.  We greet her whenever she has been gone.  Even if she was just in another room. Like when she comes out of the bathroom.

We provide physic services – with our ability to read our human’s mind – when she is thinking about taking us for a walk or a drive.  We also know when she is about to give us a bath.  So we run.

We are weather forecasters.  If you open the front door, and we PONs refuse to go out, it is raining. 

We are clowns – especially me, with our ability to make our human laugh. 

And most importantly – our biggest job is to train humans.  They are not an easy species to work with, but I think I’d rather have one of them than a chimp.  Or a dolphin.  And I DEFINITELY would rather have a human rather than a porcupine.  So we’ll continue with our role as trainers – and try to make our humans the best they can be.  It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.  And really, the job benefits ARE pretty good…

©  Linda Wozniak