The Old Broke Rancher in 'Travels With Ernie'

By Gary Shelton | September 16, 2026

The other day, I hurt Ernie's feelings when I almost went into town to the pharmacy at Stokes without her. Ernie is the puppy I said I'd never get. Though my resolve was adamantine—no puppies for old men—the little sumbitch won me over, and she's sitting on my feet right now. She's so warm and snuggly that I have removed my slippers and slipped my feet back under her belly, wriggling them now and then so that she knows her daddy loves her. I've loved every dog I've ever had, but there's something about Ernie that makes me want her to know I love her, so I try to tell her so every day.

One way that I show Ernie that I love her is by taking her to the pharmacy. I go to the pharmacy, let's see, I'm just estimating here, but I would guess nine times a week. This is because my doctor, Doctor Pisberg, has prescribed me a handful of pills a morning. And that's not a human handful, either. At minimum, an orangutan's or bigger. I have so many prescriptions, all staggered, that it seems I am always and forever running out of one pill or another. For breakfast, I will toss this dozen or so pills across the table and then gulp them down like I'm a Hungry Hungry Hippo only to realize I'm out of that little orange pill, or the little stop-sign shaped white pill, and then, oh boy, it's off to the pharmacy.

Ernie likes to go with me to the pharmacy because, if she plays her cards right, I'll get her a piece of jerky there. She considers the pharmacy beef jerky to be among the best in the world. Also, should she accompany me inside, someone is sure to fawn all over her and shower her with pets and smooches. Ernie carries on wiggling all the while, wagging her voluminous tail gratefully. One of the pharmacists, when she's there, even scratches her behind the ears and calls her "her little fluffybutt."

On the way to Stokes, as I drive down Main Street, Ernie will sit next to me in the cab of the truck, peering over the dash with her baleful eyes, which always seem somehow sad and knowing, as if she is wise before her years in the ways of doggy worldliness. She makes no pretext of having suffered more than any other dog. She bears, or rather, dogs, her share of life's burdens stoically, finding time between morsels of beef jerky to contemplate them monkishly. I read somewhere that dogs show more of the whites of their eyes than wolves do, and that we love them all the more because it makes them seem more expressive. I've never met a dog with nothing behind their eyes, but I've met plenty of people that way.

Conversation with Ernie is not impossible, but it is very challenging, considering that we do not share a language between us, only a handful of mutually understood words, and most of those don't get us very far down the path of sophisticated discourse, being limited mostly to words like "walkie-poo" and "potty." Or "treat." Sometimes I get a little philosophical about it. How come I feel like I can understand what Ernie is thinking and saying most of the time, but my wife has to repeat everything a dozen times before I can remember it?

"Does Ernie want a little treat? Huh? Does that big ole boy want a lil' treat? Is Ernie on the Ittie Bittie Treat Committee?"

There is no greater breach of Ernie's trust, and of the human/pet dynamic, than failing to take Ernie to the pharmacy with me. I only did it once or twice, and even then only because Ernie had chewed through her leash, one of her favorite but by no means the only thing she likes to chew through. I left her at home to consider what she'd done, although I wasn't cruel enough to tell her that I was going to her favorite place without her. After I came back, she somehow knew where I had been. She was inconsolable, or rather, nearly inconsolable because it took four peanut butter buddies to win her back.

Since then I have endeavored to take Ernie to the pharmacy every time. Little Ernie doesn't know what the pharmacy is, certainly has no idea why we are really there. I assume she thinks we're there to get her a piece of jerky, and that whatever else I'm doing is at best tertiary, but she sits next to me while I'm at the counter, licking her lips at the thought of her forthcoming treat, and patiently waits for me to conclude my foolishness, which she endures with the forbearance of a saint. If one of us is more likely to complain about the wait, it's me.

It has irrevocably altered the dimensions of what a pharmacy is. It used to be a place to fulfill your prescriptions, but Ernie has taught me that the pharmacy can be a destination in itself, a place to go. It is a great gift, given to us by He who bestows them, that we can make such an innocent and guileless creature happy. That it takes almost no effort to do so, just a few drops of gas and a dollar's worth of beef jerky, only makes it more sacred.

Ernie wants so little out of life—just a few belly rubs, walks, a treat or two, and a trip to the pharmacy now and then, but most of all, to be with me. She has no trouble making that clear to me at all, without using any words, only a low growl and a wriggly butt. Perhaps I'm losing my mind in my old age, but this seems like a sacred thing: that we are able to share so much with something so different from us, to have a sort of communion with it.

But above all, it gives me hope that, someday, my wife will understand me. If a dog can, anything is possible!