Several people have asked, and it's a typical Hannibal type story. It was a cool summer morning, we still lived in West Philadelphia, and I was in the nearby park with Hannibal, Vesta, and Luther. A friend Vanessa was there with her Portuguese Water Dog, and we were just having fun romping and enjoying the cool of the day. As we started to leave, Hannibal raced up to the top of the bowl (it was the site of an old water resevoir, made a great play area for the dogs off leash), and zipped over to a small tree.
Now, you have to have known Hannibal to recognize impending trouble. He was a food hound. He could smell a Carolina BBQ sandwich inside a car a block away. He picked my mother in law (the meatball lady) out of a crowd on a city street almost two blocks away. His olfactory system was nothing short of astounding - especially when food was involved. So when Hannibal reared up and put his head way up in that tree, I knew I was in for some fun. HANNIBAL? He paused, he looked at me, then he went back to business. Suddenly he raced away from the tree, away from me, carrying something that looked vaguely like a human arm. Did I mention it was West Philadelphia? Anything was possible. But Hannibal didn't count on Vanessa. He accidentally ran in her direction, and in a beautiful alpha command voice she roared "DROP IT!" He did, and she grabbed his collar. I raced over, and took a look - at a whole cow's tongue. Now I never have figured out what a cow's tongue would be doing up in a tree in a public park. Did someone put it there for a snack sometime? Maybe they thought it would cure in the summer heat? Someone just put it there for safekeeping? The mind boggles. I put the valuable dog prize in a plastic bag, and put it in one of the park trash bags. But there is more. There was a trash truck strike that summer, and the park trash remained uncollected for two weeks. A full week later, that trash bag had been removed from the container and was tied off sitting neatly beside the trash can. I had forgotten all about the cow's tongue. But Hannibal never forgot. Anything. (Except some of the commands I taught him..., well, maybe not forgot - just ignored) He waited. He deliberately waited until I was at the other side of the park. He moseyed over to that particular trash container, he sniffed, he looked at me, he triangulated to measure the distance, he calculated the time it would take me to fly across the park, then he gleefully ripped into that heavy trash bag, grabbed the cow's tongue that was double bagged, and he raced down into the park to show off his valuable doggy prize to all of the other dogs. Mayhem, thy name is Hannibal. We all had the devil of a time getting that tongue away from Hannibal who was delighting at being chased by a pack of barking jealous dogs and their yelling owners. We should have sold tickets that day. Pat Long (& Luther) Berwyn PA ________________________________________________________________________________ Check any e-mail over the Web for free at MailBreeze (http://www.mailbreeze.com)
