{"id":142,"date":"2005-05-18T22:00:18","date_gmt":"2005-05-19T04:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2005\/05\/18\/leash-life\/"},"modified":"2006-02-22T22:02:04","modified_gmt":"2006-02-23T04:02:04","slug":"leash-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/leash-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Leash life"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock<\/h6>\n<p><b>Wednesday, May 18, 2005:<\/b> Instead of speaking out of turn, here is a Brick.<\/p>\n<p> While sketching with some others in Gulley Park at twilight, a family approached: a mom, two boys and a dog tethered to one of the kids. Intelligent kids, you could tell. The dog had a long lead and pulled his master over so the pup could sniff us and our art materials scatted on the grass.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bad dog,&#8221; said the boy. A second later the dog came over again.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bad dog,&#8221; said the boy, this time managing to pull the reluctant dog away from us. (One of my party had paused to study his sketch and eager to pet the animal.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kid,&#8221; I wanted to say. &#8220;The dog isn&#8217;t bad. He&#8217;s being a dog. You don&#8217;t want him to knock over our water bottles, then shorten the lead. Oh, and go to obedience school so both of you know how to act in public.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> That&#8217;s reading too much into this. It just reminded me of myself and my Australian terrier, George, my pal from fourth-grade until eighth, when he got run over, which I witnessed.<\/p>\n<p> Dad made sure I knew how to lead with a leash, and George was smart and learned to heel, sit and so forth. But to allow length for him to explore and me to tag along with him on walks at Creekmore Park in Fort Smith and Lake Tenkiller in eastern Oklahoma, that&#8217;s a nice memory set. And to heck with the grown-ups we annoyed! -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, May 18, 2005: Instead of speaking out of turn, here is a Brick. While sketching with some others in Gulley Park at twilight, a family approached: a mom, two boys and a dog tethered to one of the kids. Intelligent kids, you could tell. The dog had a long [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4143,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/02\/chasing-a-tale\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":0},"title":"Chasing a Tale","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Book report: A Dog's Journey: Another Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron, 2012 Bruce Cameron's novels make me scream. I read novels, not as many as I would like, maybe one and a half a month. Literary novels -- the popular ones far more than ones from small publishers,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mr. Boo Klist&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bo, the dog of President Barack Obama, amuses Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-Barack-Obama-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2232,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/09\/a-blogs-purpose\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":1},"title":"A Blog&#8217;s Purpose","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Book Report: A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron. The novel A Dog's Purpose is the best book written by a dog I have ever read. No, that's not quite true. The book actually is written by the spirit of a dog. It's the best book I've ever read by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mr. Boo Klist&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6217,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2018\/11\/resilient-hombre\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":2},"title":"Resilient Hombre","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Nine percent. He shouldn't even be here, sniffing my hand and looking around, at 9 percent. He's clinically dead.\" Our vet knows that my wife and I want her to be candid. She is. At this point in the clinic visit, we're learning that the lymphoma has progressed to where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Body, Home, Street&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mani, summer 2009","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Mani-Pollock-summer-09-for-web-300x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":675,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/09\/giving-puppies\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":3},"title":"Giving Puppies","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock How do anyone know how much to give, to what to give to? Let's label this, charity. Non-profit, that could be lots of things besides charities. My professional organization, can you call that a charity? A wing of it is a card-carrying (tax ID) non-profit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Life Lessons&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/05\/dog-dunning-deal\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":4},"title":"Dog Dunning Deal","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Can't blame the dog. I refuse to blame myself. If it weren't for bashful kidneys I'd start whizzing on their yards myself. It's this letter we received last week. Here is the letter. The main thing that gripes me is that this constitutes the first notice. There was neither a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Body, Home, Street&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mani's busted","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/dog_dunning_0002-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6932,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2020\/12\/carrot-coneys\/","url_meta":{"origin":142,"position":5},"title":"Carrot Coneys","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"One food I didn't miss when I went veg was the hot dog. But last Memorial Day I realized my error. My Beloved considers the store-bought vegan frankfurter a quick occasional lunch, heating a couple to go with a salad. Works for her, meh to me \u2014 until the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Holiday Cuisine&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Holiday Cuisine","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/kook-cooks\/holiday-cuisine\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Carrot Coneys cooked up July 4, 2021","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carrot-Coneys-July-4-2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carrot-Coneys-July-4-2021.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carrot-Coneys-July-4-2021.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carrot-Coneys-July-4-2021.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/Carrot-Coneys-July-4-2021.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}