Jack Stallard

I was sitting on my porch a few nights ago enjoying a rare East Texas summer evening when the heat and humidity didn’t make it feel like I was living inside someone’s mouth.

My almost famous dogs, Sarge and Bentley, along with Murphy — the cat I didn’t want but sort of love now — were all on the porch with me. I suppose they figured I was having a snack (always a good guess) and would eventually drop something (another good assumption).

Sarge, who has become more affectionate with age, gave me his “pick me up” look, so I did. Bentley, the typical little brother who always wants to do what Sarge does, leaped into my arms – forcing me to nearly drop Sarge on top of Murphy.

I was ready since Bentley is a trusting soul and does the “catch me” leap several times a day, so I was able to make a one-handed grab and avoid a dog vs. cat battle that would certainly have brought an end to a peaceful evening.

As I sat holding a combined 25 pounds of dogs while the cat pondered her options of either joining the love pile or going off to terrorize the birds I feed each day, a car drove by and a young male passenger yelled “Hi Sarge and Bentley!”

I’ve lived in the same house on that same corner for more than 23 years. I got my start in the newspaper business in Kilgore back in 1987, and have spent more than 30 of my 37 years as a sportswriter in this area.

I don’t consider myself famous by any stretch, but if that young man is an athlete, I’ve written about him. If his mother and father were athletes, I probably wrote about them, too.

Despite all of that, it has become evident my pets are more well-known – or at least more loved — than I am around these parts.

I was already in third-place in the Stallard house behind my lovely wife and my soon-to-be 22-year-old son, and I’m OK with that. If I was voting, that’s the order I would go with.

But, to realize I’m less popular than the dogs was a bit of a shock, and I blame social media.

For several years, I’ve taken photos of Sarge and Bentley posing with The Zone high school football preview section every Friday morning during the season. It’s a great way to promote The Zone and show off my dogs, but it has also turned them both into divas.

I post the photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for their fans, and if the photos aren’t published by 8 a.m. each Friday the texts, phone calls and social media questions begin.

I’ve even had readers suggest I let Sarge and Bentley join the “How We See It” panel where predictions for upcoming high school games are made by professionals who actually perform newspaper and television jobs.

Not going to happen.

I already sink to the bottom of the list by week three of each season. I don’t need to also be out-picked by a couple of East Texas biscuit hounds who would likely beat me by using some elaborate system where they pick all of the dog mascots to win and all of the cat mascots to lose.

Come to think of it, I probably need to take Sarge and Bentley down a notch or two before this gets out of hand.

I’m thinking this season, when I do my weekly photo shoots with The Zone, I’ll only publish photographs of their bad sides AND I won’t post them on social media until 9 a.m.

That’ll show them who the boss is.

Heck. I might even start letting Murphy become one of the models if she promises to leave my birds alone.