Second dog song.

Everyone knows about second kid neglect, especially if you are the second kid. If you were a tot before smartphones made photos common, when you still had to get this stuff we called "film" "developed" at a place like the "Fotomat," you may have seen 30,597 pictures of your older sibling and 18 of you. If you were a third child, 2. Kid #4 and beyond were lucky to have their names remembered. And of course that did not mean your parents loved you less. They just had less time and -- let's face it -- the novelty of progeny had worn off.

Well, I suppose the same could be true for your pets, although it hasn't quite turned out that way here.

Tralfaz, our first dog, did get a bazillion photos of him when he got here, but Nipper, second dog, got the same treatment. They were both so stinkin' cute. Sorry, I mean Ka-YOOT. And Nipper was such an excitable puppy, such an energetic puppy, such a freaking hungry puppy, that he demanded an outsize amount of attention in a way that babies don't. (Newborns need a ton of attention, but for quite a long period in their lives, if you put them down someplace, they tend to stay there. And they don't chew wallboard or flooring. Usually.)

Over time, the attention issue has seesawed until neither dog need feel neglected, or both dogs should feel equally neglected. We do our best.

One area I had neglected was I had never written a song for Nipper. I had, yes, written a song for Tralfaz, three years ago, when he had gotten quite large and scared people who were scared of big dogs. Some folks are scared of big dogs no matter how friendly they are, and I can understand that; it's kind of irrelevant to a normal healthy adult whether the Chihuahua next door is vicious or pleasant, but that German shepherd is another story. Anyway, I wrote Tralfaz's theme song to the tune of Caspar the Friendly Ghost's, and you can find my humble efforts here.

I decided that, to be fair, and even though dogs have no clue that we do any of this kind of thing or why, I would have to give Nipper his own song. And so I did, to the tune of the old Gumby theme song:

He was once a little cute ball of fuzz
Nipper!
Now you should see the crazy things that he does
Nipper!
He can help you with any job
With a lick on the elbow too
If you've got a heart then Nipper's a part of you

If he knew what the heck we humans were on about I'm sure he'd be pleased. He is one of those dogs that like to follow you around when you're doing little jobs about the house and gets in the way, and he really likes the taste of human elbows. He has always been a lot of fun; even when he's been naughty, it's never from malice, just from wanting to be part of the party. And he is our party pup.

So that's the dogs, and if we get a third, or a pet weasel, or go adopting children or taking in homeless bums, I guess I'll have to write songs for them too. I'm in danger of becoming the crazy theme-song-writing guy.