I am normally up somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 AM every day. Most days when I get up, slide my feet into my slippers, grab my robe from the hook on my closet door and head for the kitchen to make coffee, Cochise will get out of his snuggle-bed at the foot of our bed and come padding down the hall behind me. I turn right into the kitchen, he turns left into the living room, settles onto a quilt near the fireplace and goes back to sleep. After the coffee is setup I’ll give his ears a light scratching just to tell him I appreciate his company then I settle into my easy chair with my Bible to do some reading while it’s quiet. Blondie gets up when Marie does; around 6:00.
This morning I got up and Blondie came bounding down the hall after me. She was all wound up! She wanted to wrestle and was thumping (body slamming) my chair to get me to scratch her. She’d flop onto the floor and roll up on her back for a belly rub… way more energetic than she normally was at this hour of the morning. I wondered if she was excited about it being Christmas morning. She DID go into the dining room to look at the tree and sniff the packages a couple of times. But how would she know anything about Christmas day?
At one point she hopped up from beside my chair, stood in the hallway and trumpeted a loud “AROOOOOOOoooooo”, which is her usual way of saying, ”Hello, I’m so glad to see you again!” and is generally reserved for Marie coming home from work. I assumed it meant that Blondie’s rough-housing had awakened Marie and Blondie was greeting her. That would be unusual enough as a morning greeting, but when it was Cochise, not Marie, who walked around the corner into the living room, I was shocked!
They were both agitated and demanding lots of attention. They just would NOT settle in and snooze like normal.
Later, Blondie was sniffing at the door and talking. I took that to mean that she wanted to go outside to relieve herself. I went to the door and Cochise joined us.
We had a pair of 25 foot tethers fastened to a post on the porch for fresh-air and sunshine breaks between walks on a leash. We cannot let them run loose for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that there are bears in our woods that can and will kill dogs who get too close. We have since installed a large fenced play yard for all the dogs to use.
Normally they are very good about letting me take one out to hook on a tether while the other stands at the door waiting his or her turn. This morning, as soon as I cracked the door open Blondie bulldozed her way through the door, trotted down the steps, down the driveway and into the road. I called and called, but she suddenly turned deaf.
This is not good.
I grabbed my truck keys, still in my PJ’s, robe and slippers, and climbed into the truck to give pursuit. It was just barely light and cold: around 19°. The windshield was frosted up and I didn’t have time to scrape it, so I used the window washers – which I had filled with winter-time washer fluid to keep it from freezing up. That helped clear the frost crust, but quickly froze into a thin layer of ice again as soon as the alcohol evaporated out of the solution on the windshield. I gave it repeated, short applications so I could see a little as I drove along our road, peering into the trees and driveways I passed.
I got to a point that I figured was farther than she could have gotten in the time elapsed and turned around in a driveway. Half-way back to the house I caught a glimpse of a yellow bear-like form up in a yard. It was Blondie.
I stopped in front of the house, put on the flashers, reached across and released the door on the passenger side. The angle I was sitting allowed the door to swing open and I called Blondie. She turned to look at me, then bounded off around the end of the house. Argh!
It put the truck in Park and got out to look around. I called her again. I saw nothing move, but heard ‘clunk-clunk, scrape’ from the truck. I turned and looked into the cab, Blondie was sitting in the driver seat. She must have jumped in through the open passenger door then decided to take command; maybe hoping to go for joy ride. She does love riding in the truck and often argues with me over who is going to drive. But she can’t reach the pedals, so she has to be content to ride along.
I walked over and pushed the passenger door closed, around to the other side and pulled the driver side door open – vigilant to block her if Blondie tried to bolt out this door. “Over you go girl, I am driving.” She hopped over the console willingly and sat gazing out the windshield, tail pounding out a happy rhythm against the seat back. I drove us back home and slipped a lead that we keep in the truck for emergencies over her neck – since I hadn’t thought to grab a leash on my way out.
Cochise scolded her for taking off like that, and both remained all wound up.
I went out to the guest quarters to feed the foster dogs then down to Mom’s house to feed her cat then returned home to fix our breakfast. It’s Wednesday, my turn to cook. Scrambled eggs, pan fried potatoes and sausage patties. While I cooked, Marie lit a fire in the fireplace.
After breakfast we opened gifts. Blondie took great interest in the process and wanted to help. When Marie wasn’t quick enough opening her first package, Blondie started chewing on a corner of the box, trying to get it open. Marie gave them each a chew-bone and that kept them occupied while we unwrapped the rest of our gifts.
Later Blondie, Cochise and I went over to let Hercules and Cheyanne out of their crates and stretch their legs for a bit. They came outside to relieve themselves, but then returned immediately to the door, wanting back inside. It was still only 22°. Cochise took charge, “Come run with me!” and he took off. The other three took off after him. They played chase for four or five laps around the play yard before they lost interest and scattered. Soon the foster dogs were back at the door wanting inside. Later in the afternoon, Marie would come over with treats and let them out again. By that time it would be around 40° and she’d put them in their pens to enjoy the sunshine.
For now I put them back in their crates and Cochise, Blondie and I returned home to enjoy the warmth of the fireplace, listen to Christmas carols and lounge in the sunshine.
I still don’t know what had these two so wound up this morning: they were as excited as any human children on Christmas morning. I feel kind of guilty about not wrapping up a bunch of treats for them to open – we figured just giving them extra treats would be special enough. But Blondie in particular seemed to know about and look forward to opening packages. This is her first Christmas with us, so maybe she has some history we don’t know about. But that seems unlikely since what we do know about her is that she spent most of her life on the end of a short chain out in a yard. It hardly seems she’d have had much experience with packages. Somehow the Christmas spirit got them both excited. I don’t blame them, it is a special day for all of us.
