Priceless Memories - Bob Barker [54]
On another day, I was lying on a chaise by the pool, and Carlos was sitting on the roof as usual. Just as I was dozing off, I heard the sound I had dreaded, the sound of sliding tiles. I looked up just in time to see Carlos slide off the roof and fall about sixteen or seventeen feet to the brick patio. I jumped to my feet and rushed to Carlos, expecting the worst. He got to his feet with not a moan, groan, or whimper of any kind. With all the dignity he could muster, he simply walked away.
I told this story to a friend and he said, “That must have been a stupid dog.”
I said, “Not at all. He never got on the roof again.”
• • •
Many years before Carlos and Lupe joined our family, Mr. Baker, our basset hound, was mated with Doll Face, a lovely, provocative basset hound who made her home with our good friends Charlie and Shrimp Lyon. (At this point, allow me to take a break from the narrative to apologize to my animal rights friends for arranging to have my dog mated. It was a long time ago and I know better now, as I indicated time after time at the end of The Price Is Right. The only way to solve the tragic problem of animal overpopulation is to have your pets spayed or neutered.) Now, let us continue. Doll Face produced a beautiful, healthy litter of puppies. It had been agreed that Dorothy Jo and I would get our choice of the litter. After all, Mr. Baker had certainly done his part. Dorothy Jo chose a fine little fellow who had already been named Mr. Hubbard by Shrimp Lyon. When I asked Shrimp why she named him Mr. Hubbard, Shrimp said, “He just looked like Mr. Hubbard to me.” That made sense to me.
Perhaps you are wondering how Shrimp got her own nickname. When she and Charlie were on one of their early dates, Charlie leaned down and kissed her and then said, “My, you’re a little shrimp,” and Shrimp she remained ever after.
Mr. Hubbard grew into a splendid representative of his breed. As he got older, he lost his hearing, but he got along quite well, even as an old dog. He just couldn’t hear. We moved from Encino to our home in Hollywood in 1969, and in the process of moving in, the door was left open and Mr. Hubbard decided to go out for a walk. He had been in the Hollywood house only a day or two, and we were terrified when we figured out what had happened. When we realized he was gone, I went tearing out of the house to find him. Someone told me he had walked up toward La Brea Avenue, a very busy major street. I walked up and down La Brea and east and west of La Brea. I didn’t know where he might be, but we had signs printed up, and Dorothy Jo and I posted them every place. And then it was night and he was gone—in Hollywood, a basset hound, old and deaf.
I got up early the next morning. Before I went to the studio, I looked up and down street after street. He was gone two days and two nights and part of another day. I went door to door. From talking to people, I figured out his route. He went south on La Brea, probably to Willoughby, and then east on Willoughby and realized he was not where he belonged. His instincts were right on, and he started north on Highland. At one time, he had traffic stopped in all four directions at the corner of Highland and Santa Monica.
I talked with people all along the route of my search. Mr. Hubbard’s problem was that although he was a basset hound, he was not friendly to strangers. He ran from anyone who called him or tried to help him. I found people who did. They said he wouldn’t come to them. He wouldn’t get near them. As he came up Highland, he was hit by a car just south of Franklin but apparently not badly hurt. Even though he had been in the Hollywood house only two or three days, he was headed in the right direction. Then he went in a church at the corner of Franklin and Highland. I am sure he said a prayer.
A kind fellow who lived near the church put a bowl of milk on his front porch for Mr. Hubbard. The Good Samaritan told me that Mr. Hubbard wouldn’t come up on his porch until he went back inside his house. Then Mr. Hubbard, who probably