Michael Savage - Teddy and me: confessions of a service human

A neighbor recently said to me that he judges a man by how he treats dogs. I said, Oh, I agree with that. In fact, I think it was a famous writer who wrote that in those places where we go after we pass, when we get there our pets are the masters and were the pets. How we treated our pets is how they treat us in those two places. I kind of like that. Now, thats not the reason that I treat my pets so well, but nevertheless, its nice to hedge your bets.

Well, my neighbor and I were also talking about the famous Teddy story, of when he tried to rescue an ocean swimmer. Oh, yes. Now, Teddy is a little guyhes only eleven pounds. He doesnt know how big he is or how small he is. Little dogs are like that. Being a purebred poodle, he is still in great shapereally great shape. About a year ago, he disappeared, and I thought he had drowned. You see, I live next to San Francisco Bay, in a small house right on the breakwater. I usually watch Teddy like a hawk. One day I looked around and yelled for him, but he was gone. He was nowhere to be found.

I panicked and thought that he had accidentally jumped in the water or had fallen in and drowned. I went up and down my street asking all my neighbors, Have you seen Teddy?

Everyone said they hadnt seen him. My heart dropped. I thought, my God, what do I do now? I took my eye off him for a minute and hes gone, I dont know how Im going to live with this one. Soon enough a man, another neighbor who swims in the bay, came walking down the street in his bathing suit. He had been swimming off my breakwater that morning.

A middle-aged man, and strong, he said to me, My God, that dog of yours is some wild animal.

I said, What do you mean?

He said, I thought that dog was a poof dog. He is so macho.

I repeated, What do you mean?

He said, Didnt you hear what happened?

I said, No.

He said, Well, I swim by your breakwater every morning. Teddy was out there and he jumped in the water and he swam out to me. He put his face right next to mine, looked me right in the eye, as if to say, Are you okay? And then he swam back to the breakwater at an angle. As I continued to swim, he would jump in the water every ten or fifteen feet, swim out to me, swim up to my face and check me out to make sure I was okay. Then he would swim back to the breakwater, run down the rocks on the breakwater some, and continue onward down for about a quarter mile, where it ended.

I said, Oh my God, well, I dont know where the dog is. I went to the back of the house, which actually sits on the bay, and lo and behold, here comes little old Teddy Trueheart, covered with seaweed, full of mud, running down the seawall looking up at me and with his eyes, Im sorry, Dad, I just had to do it. Its in my blood. Thats the famous Teddy story, probably the best one, and its 100 percent true.

I told my neighbor that story the other day when he was telling me about how he judges a man by how he treats dogs.

I said, You do know that Muslims hate dogs, dont you?

He said, What?

I said, You dont remember that famous story when the Somalis were brought into Minneapolis as refugees? Many of them became cabdrivers? About ten years ago? When they wouldnt even take a blind person in their cab, saying, Dogs are filthy, get out of my cab. You dont remember that?

His face dropped with horror, this dog-loving friend of mine.

I guess you can say you can judge a person by how they treat dogs.