Welcome to my returning blog readers who have remained loyal and missed me while I was on my extended non-publishing blog vacation.
I also welcome those who are reading this blog for the first time.
Everyone at HTPP, but me especially, are glad you are here. Everyone hopes you like what you find here and will return to visit us often.
Barkie Bailey’s Name Journey
For the newbies and first timers: My official full name is Barkie Bailey Elizabeth Gregory, but most mutts, pure breeds and people just call me “Barkie Bailey” or “Bailey”.
Except, of course, Mom… who when she wants to let me know that she is VERY UNHAPPY will call me "‘BAILEY ELIZABETH”, in that stern elevated pitch of hers.
Mom often shares this BAILEY ELIZABETH story (she calls it a canine voice control tactic) with the members and prospective members of the Happy Tails Pet Pal Pack (you know…. pet sitting team members, dog walking team members, HTPP fur baby parents, prospective HTPP fur baby parents or pet relatives and, of course, anyone else who will listen - i.e. hair dressers, vendors, friends, neighbors, relatives, church members…. well you get the picture, right?).
My birth name was “Ain’t She Cute”, but, in all honesty, that may have been the name of one of many sisters.
I don’t remember much detail about most of my puppy days, except for the day that my Mom went to the Canton Days Flea Market in Canton, Texas and rescued me from my dog slave masters.
While I was still very young, having just been weaned from nursing, I was taken, by the Dog Slavers, to be sold at Canton. And that is where I first saw the woman who would change my life… my Life Mother…. Ann Gregory.
She and a girlfriend were walking by my cage when out of the hundreds of dogs that was there that day she saw and took a liking to me.
Feeling deserted and alone as all of my brothers and sisters had already been sold, I spied her eyes focusing on me and checking me out.
She picked me up, loved on me, gave me some of her world famous animal scratches (they feel so good) and then walked away with me.
It was on that day, I first came to know the meaning of the phrase “I am blessed and well loved.”
Of course, I will never forget her loving and unwavering words to me when she said: “I don’t know what all those stupid people were thinking when they didn’t pick you Honey, but, I am glad they didn’t because I just got the best of the bunch.”
There in Canton, Texas, on that day, she named me “Bailey Gregory”.
For those, like me, who have inquiring minds, most likely, wonder why she chose the name Bailey.
Well, it seems that Mom and her friend went to Canton the night before so that they could get an early start at the flea market.
As the story goes, the two of them spent a few hours that night enjoying the East Texas sights and a brown looking drink from a bottle with a label that read “Bailey”.
When the two of them saw me they said my light brown fur reminded them of that drink.
When I arrived at my new home in Murphy/Plano, Texas (more about this confusing city story to be shared in a future blog post) my two legged non-fur baby sister said that she thought the name was too plain for me and that she thought I looked like an Elizabeth (to this day I am still not sure how I look like an Elizabeth or what she meant by that) so my given name became “Bailey Elizabeth Gregory”.
Of course, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with my new home and family. Shortly, after my arrival, I earned the nickname “Barkie”.
Can anybody guess how I earned the nickname Barkie?
The Cairn Terrier Blog Editor Returns
As you may or may not know, I am a Cairn Terrier, which is a breed of dog that is best known by Toto of The Wizard of Oz movie fame.
I have decided to return to my blog writing and editing duties, after about a one year absence from my prior duties as Blog Editor for Happy Tails Pet Pal, Llc.
So whether you are a returning Barkie Bailey Blog reader or a new one, I welcome you here and hope that you like what you have read so far.
Most of all, I hope that you return often, to share my life journey, experiences, thoughts, barks and opinions.
If you do, I promise to share a lot of useful information, tips and tricks along the way. In other words, most of the blogs will not be just about me, or Happy Tails Pet Pal - the pet care company, but will provide useful news, facts and other information that lovers of animals, cats and dogs can use or appreciate.
Why resume my blog writing?
Perhaps, Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus, explained it best:
“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”
BARKIE’S BLOG: PAST AND FUTURE
Quite honestly, I wandered away from my blogging duties when Happy Tails Pet Pal Llc. moved the HTPP web site from the WIX platform (due to their lack of customer service culture and policies) to the SQUARE SPACE platform.
From this point on, I hope to be posting at least twice a month, but will try to periodically post more often than that.
We are in the process of trying to recover all of the old blog posts and add them here… so keep your fingers crossed, as well as your thoughts and prayers with us on our blog post recovery project.
While we are are on the subject, of the past and the future, here are three of my favorite quotes I would like to share with you:
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” ― Bill Keane
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”
― Chuck Palahniuk
BARKIE’S CLOSING THOUGHTS
Since my last blog post, I and the rest of the HTPP team have made a lot of new friends and welcomed many to the HTPP extended family.
Sadly and most regrettably, we have lost or had to say goodbye to many others. In recognition of those precious fur babies we have known, loved and lost we will be adding a Memorial Page in the near future. We hope this page will honor their memories and legacies.
As we look to the future, we hope to continue to be blessed and able to share more blog posts with you. We encourage your comments to the posts, your thoughts and future blog post topics you would like to see addressed.
In closing, I would like to honor the memory of Terry, the most beloved Cairm Terrier to ever walk this earth on four paws.
She was born in the United States on November 17, 1933 in the worst year of the Great Depression. It was a time when one out of four Americans were unemployed. Tens of thousands travelled road and rail looking for employment and trying to survive the worst financial conditions the country had ever seen. While U.S. bank runs, drought in the Midwest and dust bowls were the norm here, Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany and opened the first concentration camp at Dachau.
Owned and trained by Carl Spitz, Terry was a female brindle Cairn Terrier who actually performed in 13 different movies. Her most famous role, of course, occurred in The Wizard of Oz, a 1939 MGM movie production when she played the part of Toto, a fictional dog in L. Frank Baum’s Oz Series of books.
Terry, who’s owner and trainer later changed her official name to Toto was reportedly paid $125 a week during the film’s production. This weekly payment was more than what the Singer Midgets who played the Munchkins received for doing the film.
Most people aren’t aware of the fact that her foot was broken during the Oz production when one of the “Winkie Guards” accidentally stepped on it. A second dog was used while her foot healed.
She passed away on September 1, 1945 following the 1945 deaths of President Roosevelt, Adolph Hitler and Hitler’s wife of one day, Eva Braun. Other events that shortly preceded her death include President Harry S. Truman order to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan, the United Nations Charter was created and the Dachau concentration camp was closed.
