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As many of you know, Val works with an animal-rescue group, helping to care for and find good homes for abandoned and, often, mistreated animals. A few even know that our senior dog Buddy sometimes questions whether she should devote so much time to the welfare of other animals when his tummy has not been tickled quite to his satisfaction. In general, however, Buddy approves of her helping to improve the lives of other dogs, the entire tribe of which he considers his friends.
A few days ago, however, Buddy and I were discussing whether there are other abandoned pets that no one has thought to rescue. It quickly came to us that, only a few years ago, there was a craze for pet rocks and that, today, nobody ever seems to talk about their pet rocks. We wondered, “Do they no longer have them?” We decided to do some detective work, and, since Buddy likes sniffing out secrets, we extended our investigation to the whole town. We must report that we turned up not a single person in our entire community with a pet rock.
We surmised that all the former owners must have thoughtlessly discarded their no-longer-loved pets and left them to lives of misery. We knew that, barring deliberate destruction or freak accidents, most rocks are long-lived, and we decided there must be millions of these poor abandoned former pets still living, waiting in quiet despair and wondering gloomily when are their owners coming back to get them. Buddy opined that he knew the value of having a human master to perform certain tasks, for example, making doggie cookies, petting when--and only when--he requests it, moving his bed to the exactly correct sunny spot, and taking him out on the leash to patrol the perimeter of his domain, and that he couldn’t help feeling sympathy for these poor rocks who had no human to perform any of these tasks for them. “Those masters must have hearts of stone,” he growled.
To make a long story shorter, Buddy, now calling himself the “Rock Hound,” and I have set up the “Pet Rock Rescue Group,” and, as soon as we can get all the paperwork done for tax-exemption, we will be requesting donations to help us do our work and will be seeking foster parents for the poor homeless rocks that we rescue. Call us if you would like to participate.
