{"id":6267,"date":"2013-12-25T15:26:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-25T20:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"christmas-morning-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/christmas-morning-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Morning with Blondie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blondie,<\/a>I am normally up somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 AM every day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 After the coffee is setup I\u2019ll 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.\u00a0 Blondie gets up when Marie does; around 6:00.<\/p>\n

This morning I got up and Blondie came bounding down the hall after me.\u00a0 She was all wound up!\u00a0 She wanted to wrestle and was thumping (body slamming) my chair to get me to scratch her.\u00a0 She\u2019d flop onto the floor and roll up on her back for a belly rub\u2026 way more energetic than she normally was at this hour of the morning.\u00a0 I wondered if she was excited about it being Christmas morning.\u00a0 She DID go into the dining room to look at the tree and sniff the packages a couple of times.\u00a0 But how would she know anything about Christmas day?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At one point she hopped up from beside my chair, stood in the hallway and trumpeted a loud \u201cAROOOOOOOoooooo\u201d, which is her usual way of saying, \u201dHello, I\u2019m so glad to see you again!\u201d and is generally reserved for Marie coming home from work.\u00a0 I assumed it meant that Blondie\u2019s rough-housing had awakened Marie and Blondie was greeting her.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

They were both agitated and demanding lots of attention.\u00a0 They just would NOT settle in and snooze like normal.<\/p>\n

Later, Blondie was sniffing at the door and talking.\u00a0 I took that to mean that she wanted to go outside to relieve herself.\u00a0 I went to the door and Cochise joined us.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We have since installed a large fenced play yard for all the dogs to use.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I called and called, but she suddenly turned deaf.<\/p>\n

This is not good.<\/p>\n

I grabbed my truck keys, still in my PJ\u2019s, robe and slippers, and climbed into the truck to give pursuit.\u00a0 It was just barely light and cold: around 19\u00b0.\u00a0 The windshield was frosted up and I didn\u2019t have time to scrape it, so I used the window washers \u2013 which I had filled with winter-time washer fluid to keep it from freezing up.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Half-way back to the house I caught a glimpse of a yellow bear-like form up in a yard.\u00a0 It was Blondie.<\/p>\n

I stopped in front of the house, put on the flashers, reached across and released the door on the passenger side.\u00a0 The angle I was sitting allowed the door to swing open and I called Blondie.\u00a0 She turned to look at me, then bounded off around the end of the house.\u00a0 Argh!<\/p>\n

\"Blondie\"<\/a>It put the truck in Park and got out to look around. I called her again.\u00a0 I saw nothing move, but heard \u2018clunk-clunk, scrape\u2019 from the truck.\u00a0 I turned and looked into the cab, Blondie was sitting in the driver seat.\u00a0 She must have jumped in through the open passenger door then decided to take command; maybe hoping to go for joy ride.\u00a0 She does love riding in the truck and often argues with me over who is going to drive.\u00a0 But she can\u2019t reach the pedals, so she has to be content to ride along.<\/p>\n

I walked over and pushed the passenger door closed, around to the other side and pulled the driver side door open \u2013 vigilant to block her if Blondie tried to bolt out this door. \u201cOver you go girl, I am driving.\u201d\u00a0 She hopped over the console willingly and sat gazing out the windshield, tail pounding out a happy rhythm against the seat back.\u00a0 I drove us back home and slipped a lead that we keep in the truck for emergencies over her neck \u2013 since I hadn\u2019t thought to grab a leash on my way out.<\/p>\n

Cochise scolded her for taking off like that, and both remained all wound up.<\/p>\n

I went out to the guest quarters to feed the foster dogs then down to Mom\u2019s house to feed her cat then returned home to fix our breakfast.\u00a0 It\u2019s Wednesday, my turn to cook.\u00a0 Scrambled eggs, pan fried potatoes and sausage patties.\u00a0 While I cooked, Marie lit a fire in the fireplace.<\/p>\n

\"Blondie,<\/a>After breakfast we opened gifts.\u00a0 Blondie took great interest in the process and wanted to help.\u00a0 When Marie wasn\u2019t quick enough opening her first package, Blondie started chewing on a corner of the box, trying to get it open.\u00a0 Marie gave them each a chew-bone and that kept them occupied while we unwrapped the rest of our gifts.<\/p>\n

Later Blondie, Cochise and I went over to let Hercules and Cheyanne out of their crates and stretch their legs for a bit.\u00a0\u00a0 They came outside to relieve themselves, but then returned immediately to the door, wanting back inside.\u00a0 It was still only 22\u00b0.\u00a0 Cochise took charge, \u201cCome run with me!\u201d and he took off.\u00a0 The other three took off after him.\u00a0 They played chase for four or five laps around the play yard before they lost interest and scattered.\u00a0 Soon the foster dogs were back at the door wanting inside.\u00a0 Later in the afternoon, Marie would come over with treats and let them out again.\u00a0 By that time it would be around 40\u00b0 and she\u2019d put them in their pens to enjoy the sunshine.<\/p>\n

\"Blondie,<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

I still don\u2019t know what had these two so wound up this morning: they were as excited as any human children on Christmas morning.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But Blondie in particular seemed to know about and look forward to opening packages.\u00a0\u00a0 This is her first Christmas with us, so maybe she has some history we don\u2019t know about.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It hardly seems she\u2019d have had much experience with packages.\u00a0 Somehow the Christmas spirit got them both excited.\u00a0 I don’t blame them, it is a special day for all of us.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas!<\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Christmas Morning with Blondie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-blondie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19348,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/19348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}