Here are some of my favorite stories about Barney, my beagle buddy who accompanied me on 2,700 remote shoots for WISH-TV from 1991 until 2003. With one exception, I have no video evidence of these adventures, but who could forget them?
Dirty dog
Barney’s first few months on TV in the early ’90s resulted in a call from a local veterinarian who specialized in pet behavior issues. Barney’s chewing, howling and digging amused my audience but not my wife. “Does he have to be bad at home, too?” she asked me. The vet offered to take Barney for a day or so, to try to curb these destructive habits. I agreed to this if Dr. Sampson would do a follow-up session and appear on my show one morning on my front porch. And so resulted a classic segment. While the good doctor explained Barney’s training, the naughty hound dug up an entire rose bush in our landscape bed, splattering the vet with mud. This episode is on YouTube.
Search and rescue
If someone called with an idea for a segment and it involved dogs, I was all ears (and nose). In l996, a hunter wanted to demonstrate how his pack of hounds could track a raccoon scent to a tree. So, here’s what I did. After the dog owner spread an artificial coon scent on the ground, I followed the path with a piece of pepperoni. The two aromas separated after 50 yards, one going to the right toward a tree and the other to the left ending at a picnic table where I had deposited the tasty treat. The segment began and we released all the dogs. Sure enough, the coon hounds followed the coon scent and Barney parted company with them, ending up with a nice meaty breakfast. That was live TV, one take, no do-overs.
Fowl behavior
In the fall of ‘95, for about the zillionth time, Barney scurried out a door during a live TV segment. He was on the loose somewhere in Greenwood, following his nose. I called the Greenwood police and asked them to keep an eye out for the little miscreant. About 40 minutes later, a police car (lights and siren turned on) pulled up to my remote location. There, sitting in the police car next to the officer, was Barney…in two sets of handcuffs. Why? According to the officer, he had gone into Kroger on the way home, and there was Barney in the store with a barbeque chicken in his mouth. He got arrested! For stealing a chicken.
They kill ants, don’t they?
Barney would eat anything. It’s a beagle trait. One night I heard rustling in the kitchen and went downstairs to discover Barney chomping on one of those aluminum ant traps that can be slid under the fridge. Barney used his paw to extricate the trap and was enjoying its sweet flavor, the poison dripping out of his mouth. I threw him in the car and rushed to the animal emergency hospital. The veterinarian recognized me and led us inside. “He ate two ant traps,” I stammered. “Will it kill him?”
“Oh, Mr. Wolfsie, said the doctor, “they don’t even kill ants.”
Belly laughs
Like people, dogs generally don’t relish getting caught in the rain. Barney was no exception. One morning at the annual Indiana State Fair balloon race, Barney escaped from my car and minutes later was caught in a major downpour. One of the flight organizers was standing in the middle of the field assessing the weather and weighing the decision whether to call off the race. This guy had the biggest pot belly I had ever seen. And there was Barney, hiding under the man’s protruding tummy and walking along with him as he made his way around the infield. To borrow a dog’s favorite expression, Barney was “dry as a bone.”
And now, all my television stories have come to an end. Thanks again to everyone for watching over the years.
