Reader Scott Bower took me up on my recent plea for COVID-19 subject material, which is disappearing a lot more rapidly than the disease. Bower wished to know what my dogs, Jasper and Annie, think about me being at home all the time for the past 51 days. Why not, he wondered, put up a column from my dogs’ point of view? Here’s what they think. It’s not deep, but they’re dogs, so keep that in mind before you start posting nasty comments.

—The old man is staying home another day? What happened? Did he get fired again?

—Looks like he just got tired of working.

—Or he retired. He’s old enough.

—Well, if he’s retired, shouldn’t he be fishing or playing golf? At least he should be getting out of the house. He’s messing with my daily routine.

—He should be going dancing with the old folks down at the community center.

—Yeah, they used to have Big Band era groups playing down there. These days it’s Van Halen tribute groups.

—Sarah Van Palin, an all-girl tribute band.

—Van Sailin’ a yacht-rock tribute to Van Halen.

—BARKBARKBARK!

—What? What’s going on?!

—Nothing. I thought I heard something.

—A dog can’t even bark anymore without getting hollered at. Look! You were right! Somebody’s walking on the sidewalk! It’s that same guy we saw yesterday! BARKBARKBARKWAHOOOOOOO!!!

—WAAAAHOOOOOOO!!!

—WOOFWOOFWOOF!

—OK, great, the old man is yelling at us again. I guess he doesn’t see the dangers of a guy walking right in front of our house.

—Wearing a mask! He might as well be wearing a sandwich board with the word “burglar” on it. Do you think he’s packin’? I bet he’s packin’.

—Maybe we should just keep quiet and let him come in and steal anything he wants. That’ll teach the old man to yell at us. I thought he adopted us to be ferocious guard dogs.

—”Rescued” us…

—Yeah, whatever. More like “got us cheap.”

—Too late, now the walking thief has gone around the corner.

—That’s because we barked at him. He’ll go rob somebody who doesn’t have dogs. I guarantee it. The next person that comes, let’s just roll out the red carpet and put out the good silver.

—BARKBARKBARK OWOOOOO!

—What are you doing? We were gonna let him in!

—It’s not the same guy. It’s a lady with a baby stroller and a DOG!

—Wait. Shut up. Look, the old man is standing by the leash drawer!

—Walk! Are we going for a walk! I wanna go for a walk! BARKBARK(whine).

—Oh, yeah, baby! It’s walk time! (whine)

—Nope, look, he’s just gonna go sit in his chair some more.

—I swear I’ve never seen a lazier man. Why doesn’t he just leave the back gate open and we can walk ourselves? Save him from losing some of those precious calories.

—Good point. It’s not like he’s any good at walks, anyway. Every time I’m about to go kill a squirrel, he yanks me back. It’s infuriating as hell. The whole point of going for a walk is to kill squirrels, and I haven’t come within three feet of one. Now I’m so hungry I could eat a cat.

—Oh, for cripe’s sake, is he snoring now? Look at him. If he’s gonna stay home all day, at least do it with some dignity. He’s dressed like he stole his outfit from a dead saxophone player.

—BARK!

—Hahaha! You scared the hell out of him. I love barking when he’s asleep.

—I didn’t mean to. I thought I saw a crow.

—Well, now that he’s awake, maybe he’ll give us something to eat. I could go for a good pizza bone right now.

—Oh, look. He’s sitting at his computer. He looks so cute when he’s pretending to work. Let’s go make puppy eyes at him. See if he gives us something.

—It worked. He’s giving us bully sticks! I love bully sticks! Why are they called that, anyway?

—Because if they called it what it is, you wouldn’t eat it. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.

—After I polish this off, I’m gonna hit the hay for a while. Bark if you see anything at all.

—I’m really tired of the old man being around. Do you think things will ever get back to normal?

—I don’t know. It looks like he’s pretty happy just sitting in a chair. And it’s been, what, 51 days in a row now? If things do get back to normal, I’m afraid it’s going to be a different kind of normal.

—Like, he’s going to make us write all his columns from now on?

—Maybe, but it’s not like it’s hard work. It’s easier than peeing on a tree.

Tim Grobaty is a columnist and the Opinions Editor for the Long Beach Post. You can reach him at 562-714-2116, email [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter and Grobaty on Facebook.