Mornings With Barney (22 page)

In the weeks after Barney's passing,
I felt like half of Indiana was suddenly in the matchmaking business. Everybody had a friend who had an extra beagle, or had found a beagle, or knew somebody who knew somebody who'd just had four of the cutest, most adorable beagle puppies you ever saw and I better act now or they might give them to the pound, where they might be put to sleep. Please, spare me. Things were tough enough.

I resisted most overtures, but some were tough to ignore. I received several calls from two local humane societies and paid them the courtesy of a visit, just to look at the beagles up for adoption. I knew the possible fate of many of these dogs, which was just crushing for me, but none of them looked like Barney. Why should that have mattered? For some reason, I felt no connection to these dogs. The color was wrong, the howl was off, the wag wavered. Too short, too thin. Lack of sufficient floppiness in the ears. The eyes weren't right. Man, those eyes. That was the deal breaker. No one had eyes like Barney. Right into his soul. And into mine.

There was one beagle, Stanley, at the Hamilton County Humane Society, who did catch my attention. And he looked like Barney, but
he
was a girl. Yes, a girl named Stanley. And for reasons that I cannot explain but will probably get me in trouble with feminists, this was not a female role I was casting. I wanted a Jim Carrey, not a Tina Fey. I know that's totally nuts. But that's how I felt.

One afternoon when I was at my computer writing a newspaper column, the phone rang ... “Mr. Wolfsie, you don't know me, but I'm down at the shopping center about three minutes from where you live and I drove two hours to show you my six beagle puppies. It would be an honor if you would put one on TV and make him a star.”

I jumped in the car to take a look. How could I not? The dogs were adorable. So adorable, in fact, that while I was playing with them in this huge pen, people in the parking lot recognized me and thought they were about to witness a historic event: the selection of the new Barney. I resisted taking one of the pups, but I am pleased to say that three of the dogs found a home that day.

One of the complications of my decision was that our cat Lindsay, who was within a whisker of twenty-one years old, was in no condition to deal with a new dog. I made a promise—no new dog while Lindsay was still alive—to my wife, and that took the pressure off me to continue the search. Mary Ellen was happy being beagle-less, at least temporarily.

Two weeks later, Lindsay retreated to the laundry room and as cats often do, passed away quietly in private. She was a classy cat who never gave a mouse's ass about Barney. Over the dozen years, there was an occasional swat and maybe one or two hisses, but Lindsay was unimpressed with the TV star. That's how cats are.

Our other cat, Benson, still spry at nineteen, might have to face the prospect of a new housemate. I knew he wouldn't like it. Well, tough.

Then in September, just six weeks after Barney died, a call from a former guest, just one of thousands on my show who had been moved by Barney's death. Marcia had two loves: dogs and mushrooms. She had been on
Daybreak
twice, each time highlighting her business, Fungus Amongus, an endeavor that made her a favorite with local chefs who prized her homegrown mold. To quote her T-shirt: SHIITAKE HAPPENS.

“I have a dog I want you to see. A beagle. I've had him for a couple of weeks. A stray.”

“Marcia, please don't do this to me.”

“Dick. You have to see this dog.”

Marcia knew mushrooms, but she also knew dogs. She was harboring about six other rescues at the time and I sensed that her husband, John, was pressuring her to get rid of one. Apparently, the beagle (Toby), the newest edition, had disrupted whatever chemistry had existed within the pack.

Marcia lived three miles away in a rustic farmhouse just off the main thoroughfare. When I pulled in, I heard the cacophony of howls, barks, and whimpers as my car rumbled to a stop on the cobblestone driveway.

I walked in with the feeling that I was going to go home with a new beagle. Marcia greeted me, then retreated to a back room where she managed to release just Toby, although all six dogs were desperately trying to nudge their way through the door and into the main room to greet me.

Out he came, his legs spinning along the wooden floor as he desperately tried to secure his footing. The exuberance in seeing a new face only intensified the furor of his advance and he skidded head first into the sofa. Dazed for a moment, and panting furiously, he gathered himself and then sat up on his hind legs and howled at me.

Oh, God. That's what Barney used to do. And he looked exactly like Barney. Well, almost. His coloring was virtually identical, although he lacked a tiny white strip on his forehead. Instead, there was a kind of crevice or dent in his head, a place my son would later say was where they were supposed to put his brains. And he was a big beagle, fifteen inches high, not eleven like many beagles. Just like Barney.

And he had the eyes. He had Barney's eyes. Marcia knew I was hooked. I knew I was hooked. Even the dog knew it.

We struck a deal. I'd take Toby home for the weekend, introduce him to Mary Ellen, Brett, and Benson, and if we could get through Saturday and Sunday without structural damage to the house or major opposition from feline or family, I'd take him.

Toby jumped in the car and we took off for his new home, but before we departed Marcia saddled me with one piece of additional information about the dog. He had been a stray, which I knew, but when Marcia took him to the vet they discovered a microchip in his neck. This is often a good sign of a vigilant, caring owner. Marcia had tried to contact the family, but they had not returned repeated calls.

The last thing I wanted to do was bond with the dog, then have to return him. I had a flashback to the early days of Barney's celebrity when people would come up to me and claim that Barney belonged to them and until they had seen him on TV, they had no idea what had happened to their precious little (fill in any name). Most folks were just pulling one of our six legs, but it did raise a frightening specter of how I would have dealt with a serious challenge to my ownership.

Toby dragged me into the house, a good indication of my challenges ahead. It was about 2 PM, so Brett was still at school; Mary Ellen was at work. Toby sniffed about but was decidedly reserved, a touch skittish in his new surroundings. Suddenly, a cameo appearance by Benson, who simply eyeballed the dog and confirmed it was Barney—suggesting that reports of the beagle's death had been exaggerated. Then as Benson moved on, he got the first delayed whiff of the intruder, just nanoseconds after the initial visual ID. This was enough to dissuade him of his original assessment. His head whipped around to scrutinize Toby. Wait! One more quick look. Hey, that's not Barney. What are they trying to pull over on me? Now we had hair on end, growling, paw swatting. A cat hissy fit.

But don't miss the point here. Benson had done a double take, an honest-to-goodness theatrical, Hollywood double take. Even Barney had never mastered that.

It was a tough weekend. Toby clearly possessed all the attributes that would make him a possible substitute for Barney. This meant that he was also a bit incorrigible. Could I make my family go through this again? Did I have to? Remember that I still had not been instructed by the TV station
not
to get another dog. I knew it in my gut, but no one had the nerve to tell me. Yet.

We were at a precarious point. We had all cozied up to Toby over those few days—even Brett, although that zeal would wane eventually. But did we really want another beagle? Well, I did. I was hoping this was not going to a household vote.

Within a week, that decision was made crystal clear to me by my boss. Crystal clear! Did I want the truth? Could I handle the truth? “No more dogs,” I was told. “Let's face it,” said the news director, “there can never be another Barney.” You could read that with any inflection you wanted, but here was the bottom line: no more reporters with canine sidekicks. But what about me? Would I continue in the same gig without a dog?

As Cochrun later explained, he felt my value as a reporter on live shots was a waste of my real talent. He was a fan of my weekly newspaper column and wanted me to devote my time to feature packages, stories that are written and edited. “No more live stuff,” he said. I panicked. I was flattered he liked my writing, but five produced stories a week meant twice the work. I didn't have to write or edit the live segments. I just did them. It also meant the end of the spontaneous nature of the show. I told my wife I was going to quit. She wasn't a big fan of that idea, so I agreed to try it.

So there would not be another dog. How did I feel about that? I must admit, I have always thought it was the right decision, but for the wrong reason. The boss was correct. There would never be another Barney. Everything about Barney's stardom, his impact on the community, was pure happenstance. He was a one-in-a-billion beagle, thrown into the ideal situation with this aging reporter who was just perceptive enough to capitalize on the pairing, highlighting the antic-prone tendencies of this special canine.

No, there could never be another Barney. But this decree was not about Barney's irreplaceability, it was about getting a new, more “sophisticated” look for the news. That's why they didn't want my live daily shenanigans anymore. The new emphasis would be on news, weather, and traffic.

The truth is that the package segments were a success. I won awards and over forty of my pieces were nationally syndicated. But even that gig bit the dust, finally. Two years later, I was told that viewers didn't have time to watch a thoughtful two-minute segment in the morning. They needed to get the basics and head out the door. Which is where I thought
I
was headed. The solution from the station: Put Wolfsie on live on the weekends. His shtick will sell there. People have more time to watch.

By the time I had been told that Barney was not going to be replaced, Toby had already become a member of the Wolfsie family. It was too late to turn back. We were stuck with him. Crass, I know, but the family choice of a dog—if we were voting—would not have been for a beagle. Mary Ellen had grown up with a collie. That was supposed to be our next dog.

I did have one call to make. I had to make sure that Toby's previous owners—the ones Marcia had traced through Toby's microchip—weren't still looking for him. I called again and this time, damn it, someone answered. I did not reveal my name, which might have been an invitation to sell the dog, rather than relinquish it.

“I found your dog, Ma'am. A beagle, about three, a tri-color, male.”

There was silence for several seconds. I asked again if it was her dog.

“He's a pain in the ass. He's trouble,” she finally uttered. Little did she know that this was the kind of dog that had made me famous. But wait. Trouble can mean a lot of things. I pushed for details. “Look, there's a lot of tension in my house,” she continued. “My husband and I are getting a divorce. And he keeps running away.”

“The dog or your husband?”

Forgive me. A straight line of such immense potential could not be ignored. But it worked. She hung up the phone. Toby was mine. I was thrilled. Or was I?

Those first few weeks were like reliving the nightmare of the previous twelve years. He was as bad as Barney in every way. In one way, he was worse. Barney had been housebroken. How and when he acquired that skill, we never knew. But Toby had a whiz-anywhere attitude.