Ringo’s Big Adventure

(Chapter 11)

Ringo’s Job Search Continues

by Dallas Doctor

 

Ringo thinks we’re rich.  He spends most of his day lounging out on the deck in the fresh air, in either sunshine, or shadow.  Every now and then, he’ll lumber into the kitchen to make sure the dog-bowls have been magically filled for another day.  Sometimes he seeks out the cool tile floor of the foyer for a nap.  Other times he sneaks in behind the floor-length curtains in the bedroom and curls up in a cozy, little comfort zone.  But truth-be-told, Ringo spends a large part of his life waiting for the next time we get to go outside to do something fun…

It’s becoming increasingly apparent lately to Doc that Ringo seems to be looking for a job.  For example: whenever he encounters the sheep that inhabit the olive grove at the top of the hill, Ringo perks up, gets all excited, and wants to go to go for a run and get to work on those sheep.  Doc explains to Ringo that if he wanted to be a shepherd, he should have started his training earlier, or better yet, he should have been born a different breed.

Sometimes Ringo encounters a scurrying-furry-something-or-other and thinks he might like chasing critters into holes and digging them out of burrows.  Ringo thinks he could like that job.  But Doc explains to Ringo that he’s too far big for that job.  Wrong breed again.  Ringo should have chosen a different set of parents if he wanted that job…

So what could Labradors do?  Ringo wants to know…

Well, some Labradors are bird dogs.  But Ringo would have had to have picked a very different human friend if he wanted to be a bird dog.  Doc is never going to kill animals for fun or recreation, because it’s just-plain-simply not necessary.  And besides: Ringo never paid all-that-much-attention to birds anyway.  Even all the wild chickens in Key West never really interested Ringo much.

What about this?  Pat Benson sent us an article about a chocolate Lab who sniffs out invasive muscles in a lake in California.  Ringo would be great at that.  But getting Ringo to California is a problem.  Ringo didn’t like being stuffed in a cramped crate in the noisy belly of the plane for 9-hours between Miami and Paris… and California’s even further away than that… So what’s a big brown dog to do?

Some labradors are search and rescue dogs.  Maybe Ringo could do that? Ringo thinks it would be fun and cool to go out and search for things and to actually find something good and worthwhile to do in the world. 

Ah Ha?  Something good in the world… 

Now there’s an idea!

That’s possible, Doc has to concede, but Ringo should have started training much, much earlier If he wanted a search-and-rescue job… Doc understands how Ringo feels though.  “Maybe we’d both have done things differently when we were young, if we knew then what we know now,” Doc confides in Ringo, “… or maybe not.” 

Doc’s not sure what can realistically be done at this late stage.

While Doc thinks about it, Ringo goes out to the balcony.  He stretches.  He sniffs the outside air.  He makes himself comfortable.  Ringo figures until something better comes along, he’s just going to have to find a way to be happy being who he is …

Doc watches Ringo out on the deck and it makes him happy.  That’s something good, … right?

 

 

 

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Please feel free to share this story in any way you consider appropriate.  This is part of a collection of simple short stories called: “Ringo’s Big Adventure” which is NOT to be confused with a similarly titled, but entirely different set of (hopefully) more-literary stories with the working title “Conversations Overheard While Traveling with Ringo” which are ONLY available to the awesome humans who are making these adventures possible.  Please visit patreon.com/dockity/overview to learn more… Thank You!   Sincerely, dockity.

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