I conducted most of my business from my bedroom this morning. There are huge advantages to being in the stage of a deal where everything is done via computer and phone. Mid-morning, while I was the only human in the house, I looked up and saw a large squirrel staring in my window from the side gate. I would have thought that he wouldn’t have been able to see in through the window, that there would have been a reflection to prevent it. To my surprise, he totally saw me, and I think he made eye contact and watched me very closely. And I swear he wore a look of disapproval, throwing such shade at me I was nearly compelled to go out back and make sure there was enough birdseed and dried corn for his breakfast. I didn’t, but I thought about it seriously.
It was maybe an hour after that, when I was showered and prepping to go to Rotary that I stood closer to that same window, and realized the squirrel had seemed so close because the side gate was standing open, allowing him to be just a few feet from my window. I immediately panicked, thinking my two remaining dogs would have run away by the time I discovered the gate was left open. I raced to the back of the house, hoping against hope that Murray would have flipped over in his wheels, thus keeping him from escaping. I was never so pleased to see that little goober had done just that, and was waiting patiently for me to come right him. I detoured through the garage, hoping that Elsa would be in her favorite spot, sleeping on her bed rather than roaming the neighborhood. Again, my luck held. Nothing better than a dog whose two favorite things in life are a soft bed and the promise of a regular meal schedule.
I went out to stand Murray upright, prepared to send a photo to the Mr who left the gate open, with a nasty note attached. I managed to pick the dog up without dinging my freshly painted fingernails (a Christmas miracle, that was), and I turned around to find the inner gate, the vestigial chain link that I kept on the off chance we needed a dog run so we could have a garden party without dogs begging for something or jumping on a guest, was already closed, and the perimeter was as safe as it ever was. The only one of our dogs who could have jumped a fence was Bump, and in the last year of his life, that became increasingly difficult for him, and uninteresting to boot. Elsa was always too chubby to jump, and she asks for a boost any time she is invited into a truck. Murray, well, he may think he is Underdog, Superhero of Canines, but the day those wheels lift off of the ground is the day we remake the bike escape scene of E.T. I’m not holding my breath.
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