Helmut Hassler

My given name is Hunter vom sudlichen Wald but my hooman calls me Helmut. I am a Deutsch Drahthaar, and I own the hooman named Chuck. 

I really love my hooman, even though he is sometimes as dumb as a fencepost and as slow as molasses in January. He tries, he really tries, and as everyone knows, dogs are the most forgiving creatures in the world.

The thing that really brings us together is we both really like to hunt. I was born to it. I hunt  every kind of varmint and bird, but I’ve learned my hooman mostly likes to hunt pheasant birds, so I oblige and mostly focus on them too. However, if there’s a skunk or a coon or a fox or a coyote that happens to get in the way I am delighted to take them on too. It’s my job. This can lead to conflict with my hooman, who says bad words, especially when I take on a skunk, and then splashes a special sauce on me when we get home, and continues to complain while he rubs it in. What a whiner.

No matter. I don’t worry about it because I know he’ll soon forget about it. Like I told you, he’s not that smart.

While I hunt every moment of every day when we’re outside, he only brings his shooting stick out during certain seasons, which is pretty dumb, but again he’s only hooman and born to make mistakes, like the song says.

I show him pheasants and other birds all the time, hundreds of times a year, pointing directly at them. “Here it is, dumkoff!” He seems to like it but only brings his shooting stick out when the leaves start to turn. Baffling.

That’s because time is a hooman construct. We drahthaars, indeed all doggies, know there is only right now. Yesterday is irretrievably gone, tomorrow only exists in the fevered hooman mind. And right now is plenty good! A good time for a walk or a snack or, even better, dinner.

One thing hoomans are really good at, as slow of foot and dim-witted as they seem, is procuring and producing stuff to eat. That’s why so many of them are fat. One of our jobs, as man’s best friend, is to help them not eat so much by sharing what they obviously don’t need to be stuffing their faces with.

It’s out of concern for your health that we doggies seek food, or beg, as hoomans haughtily like to say. Trying to help you limit your intake so you don’t turn into a facsimile of the Goodyear blimp.

We also excel in helping hoomans avoid wasting food. What hoomans mistakenly toss in the garbage can often be recycled after processing and is often delicious.

One thing hoomans will never understand is poop eating. All dogs have to learn this human foible early on in life and learn to eat on the run. When your hooman says “What’s that in your mouth?” you need to learn to choke it down as fast as you can or risk losing it.

Eventually even the dumbest dog will figure their hooman out and learn their weaknesses. Once you crack the hooman code you will be riding the gravy train while simultaneously helping your hooman to be more hooman and less catlike. 

That’s our job.