That Dog

My dog will be the death of himself.

Just because everyone in the family is under the spell of his beauty and love, does not mean that we spoil him. It just means that he is the king of us.

When we moved to our new house, Arrow was convinced we had done so just for him. Not only did we provide him with plenty of room to run, he also suddenly acquired a forest, a pond, and cats.  The cats rue the day. It only got better after that because when spring rolled in he suddenly found himself the owner of geese, baby birds, and squirrels.

Why can't he be satisfied with that?

"I'm calling about your dog," the voice on the phone told me.
"Yes?" I said after deciding against pretending I only spoke Spanish.
"I think I have him. I work on a horse farm, and we have a husky here. He's a friendly fellow, but he keeps chasing the horses and making them panic."
"Sorry," I mumbled, trying to sound like a responsible adult.
"He's only trying to play, but he's gonna get himself hurt or get a horse hurt."
"I'll be right there."

And now we have to keep the friendly fellow on a leash where he sits and looks at all the freedom he once had. He cries and whines and barks. He walks in circles and gets himself tangled around trees. And, in some way which I cannot explain, he gets his leash wrapped around his legs, his chest and his tail until he cannot move.

What I really don't understand is this:  How can a dog, who does not have an opposable thumb, figure out how to open a door knob so that he can get inside, but he cannot figure out how to walk in an opposite direction so as to untangle himself?

Not one to embrace captivity, he turned into a canine Houdini - escaping at every possible minute. Sometimes he was caught in the act, but he usually just got away. Then I would get a phone call. So we had the brilliant idea to let him run around at night. The horses were safely asleep in their stables, and small children were locked up in their houses. So we let him loose. He ran like the wind. He raced like a bolt of lightening into the nearest cornfield and never looked back.


"What if he gets hurt?" I asked Mike. "Or, what if some horse was accidentally left outside, and Arrow hurts it? Or what if he never comes back home?"
"Let's watch a movie to get your mind off of it," Mike suggested.
"I guess we can look at a movie as we sit on the couch and worry."

Several hours later we heard a happy bark at the door. With relief racing through our bodies, we ran to the door and opened it. Arrow drug himself into the house, smelling of adventure and skunk, plopped himself onto the cool kitchen floor, and slept till noon the next day.

I washed him with vinegar. I washed him with tomato juice. I washed him with special apple anti-skunk shampoo. Didn't make a dent. He reeks.

I wonder what happened to the skunk.