ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 1, 1996 TAG: 9604010106
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beagle
SOURCE: BEAGLE
You guys don't know me.
You could drive up Happy Highfields Road and see me looking like I'm dead in the driveway and you wouldn't know me from your average dog.
Rin Tin Tin I ain't and I didn't get any more famous after my owners named me after this old guy next door whose elevator gets stuck between floors sometimes.
I wanted a name that said something about me. I got "Ben Beagle," after an old guy who's losing it every day.
I don't want to be a whiner, but I always wanted a decent name and maybe a snobbish Ivy League-type puppy farm to put on my resume.
I wanted Lassie as a next-door neighbor. I got the old guy's dog, Millie, who has all these allergies and no hair on her tail. I kind of feel sorry for her, but a dog with no hair on her tail does tend to make you laugh.
(You may think I'm gross, but you people giggle at other humans who don't have hair on their heads.)
Still, Millie is a very nice dog and she has a nice name and it makes me sore that a little more thought wasn't put into mine. Anybody ever think of naming me Greatheart? Forget it.
The old guy's son has these boxers named Lancelot and Morgan Le Fay. A little showy, maybe, but better than being named Ben Beagle. If I'd been a collie, you think they'd have named me Ben Collie?
I'd probably be known today as Tom Hanks or Kevin Costner.
Anyway, I get around the neighborhood pretty good and I can tell you the old guy ought to have "Scrooge" as a middle name. These dog biscuits he gives out taste like leftovers from World War II.
A lot of people on the street use brand-name biscuits. Not old Silas Marner there.
You know Beagles are supposed to be snoopers, right? That's why you big-cheese editors asked me to write this, right? To get a little dirt on the old guy, right?
OK. For openers, I found out that nobody in Radford ever heard of him and that he really isn't fat; just wears all these pads so he can write all this junk about exercise machines and fat-free diets.
He also calls me these dumb names on on my morning biscuit raids - when he can hardly walk on account of his back. Like: "Bennington Pennington" and "Benno Malvolio" and "Benny Penny." All that for a couple of El Cheapo dog biscuits a week.
You editor types can send the check for this to General Delivery in Toledo. I'm outta here. The old man ain't gonna like this column.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB