TBT - WSU Delt - Barney, this house dog.

One day or evening at the Delt house the fraternity has acquired a dog.  A very cute coal black puppy that somebody named Barney.  Things I still do not know about Barney:

1. Where he came from?  Shelter, store or stray?  Or, did show up?
2. Was approval given from the fraternity to get a dog or did someone just bring it home and say "we have a dog now"?
3. How did someone not see this as an incredibly bad idea?  We had guys who had fish tanks that couldn't keep basic fresh water fish alive let alone a dog.  

Now we (the fraternity) were responsible for a very cute and very young puppy.  I liked the idea of having a dog in the fraternity.  My thought would have to adopt an older trained/trainable dog.  Not to be.  Barney was here and we now had 60+ guys with different ideas on how to train him.  Barney didn't stand a chance.

Some guys didn't mind him being in the dinning area and others didn't.  Some fed him table scraps and others said that was a bad idea.  With all these different methods and ideas for training our new puppy Barney didn't know what to do.

Barney seemed to become attached to myself and Dirty Stan.  Not exactly sure why but he hung out with us a lot.  I guess it was because we played with him and pretty much let him do whatever he wanted.  You want to chew on Spiger's shoe....go ahead you're just a pup do whatever you want but don't poop in the room.

It didn't take long for everyone to realize that Barney wasn't going to work out.  In short time we had him he didn't learn anything and that wasn't going to change.  There was talk of enrolling him in obedience courses.  Like THAT would work.  If it had worked Barney would have been the only obedient thing in the house.  The decision was made to find a new home for Barney.  We placed an ad in the Daily Evergreen and shortly after he was gone to a new home we hoped would be properly trained and cared for.

One morning a few months later a group of us were on our way to a final for a class we all attended.  On the way there I looked on the hillside and there was a black hair O shaped thing.  As I got closer I realized it was a dog chasing his tail at mach speed.  Like cartoon Tasmanian Devil speed.  I thought to myself "that dog has some real issues with its tail" and then as I looked closer I thought "that kind of looks like Barney"  I decided to see if it was and called out "come here Barney!" and that dog stopped dead in its tracks looked straight at me and came charging down the hill like his tail was on fire.

Sure enough it was Barney.  He was a muddy mess and was jumping all over me.  He followed us all the way to the class. We tried to discourage him from coming into the class.  To no avail.  Barney followed us into the final and parked himself underneath my seat and went to sleep.  As long as he did disrupt anyone I figured it was "okay"  The professor didn't notice or did and just didn't say anything.  Following the test Barney walked out with us and went right back up to the hillside were I spotted him and resumed chasing his tail.  That was the last time I saw him.  I would like to think Barney ended growing into a great dog for it's new owner.

The story of Barney is not to be confused with the "dogs of summer" we had going on in the house the one summer semester I spent at WSU when we had multiple dogs and their neighborhood friends in the house.

That's all for now.

Nano Nano,

-Brent