A Dog Needs Its Blanket

In my almost 20-year veterinary career, I’ve seen and heard some incredible stories about people’s pets. In fact, it’s one of the things I like the best about this job of mine.

Some are bizarre, some are unbelievable; most are heartwarming testaments to the fact that pets are family and that almost every pet has something that makes a particular fur-family member uniquely precious.

Everybody wants to tell you his or her story, and so do I.

Here’s a tale of a tail that belongs to Sirloin, our black Labrador retriever, our youngest child who’s 2 years old. Like all other proud parents, we think he’s special. Here’s proof:

We got Sirloin, my son Lex’s dog, from a kennel in Sandpoint. His father was purportedly a runner-up at the National Field Trial Championships the previous year, and Sirloin is certainly blessed with a beautiful conformation, a rugged body and the instincts to retrieve.

Although Ghandi-like in nature, he can make the hair stand up on someone’s neck on the rare occasion when he senses danger and spits out an Oak Ridge Boys’ bass-singer-like bark/growl combo.

I don’t think too many people would be scared, though, if they knew this 80-plus-pound block of black steel, over 20 years old in human years, sleeps with a security blanket.

That’s right. Even the cool grass isn’t good enough for Sirloin. Like Linus, the character in the Peanuts comic strip, Sirloin constantly drags around an old blanket to sleep on. In the summer, he runs from one part of the yard to the next with the blanket in his teeth, flowing back over his body like he’s the caped Canine Crusader.

Once he selects a resting spot, he fluffs the blanket up with his paws and lies down to observe his universe. Some angel, singing at a frequency we can’t hear, sings him some Lab lullabies and puts him to sleep.

In the winter, he moves the blanket into his Igloo dog house or he’ll drag it out onto the snow, if the mood strikes him, to sleep on a frozen water bed.

It’s a good thing dogs don’t have thumbs or he’d probably be sucking on it, too. After all, he’s a Lab, stuck in emotional second gear, destined never to grow up, always a pup.

Now, while there are probably other pets with security blankets they drag around, there most certainly are even more unusual habits. It just goes to prove that there’s only one smartest, cutest, most special pet in the world — and every family has it.