Sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery doesn’t it?! Yes, I am still among the living. I’ve discovered that my life is just too busy to dedicate an entire block of time to daily blogging. Maybe if the computer had a stick with a truffle hanging from it chearing me on. I’m quite sure I’ve lost my entire entourage of 3 readers due to my extended absence but I can always email my mother and get one back!
So what could inspire me, other than a truffle, to tippy type my way back into blogging fame? My dog.
Prancer is an 11 year old Shiba Enu. Her ancestors were bred in Japan to hunt small game on the sides of mountains. Apparently, someone forgot to inform Prancer of her illustrious heritage.
She’s always had a few little quirky habits. When she gets a new bone she carries it around the house for extended periods of time while whining. Loudly. She then puts the bone in her bed and lays down next to it. Apparently bones require a place of honor and comfort. She doesn’t chew her toys up but does nibble them to death. She will not sit on a couch or a bed if another human is on them but does make exceptions if it’s thundering outside or no one’s home and she needs a place to deposit fur. She is also very selective with who gets the honor of letting her outside. She will sooner explode than tinkle for just anyone. (Unless you are a vet, an employee of the vet, or a distant relative of the vet. Any of which will be rewarded by copius amounts of solids and liquids spewing at high vilocity in several directions.) Which leads us to “the ritual”.
Having such high standards for letter-outers leads a dog to have frequent middle of the night regrets. It seems that refusing to go outside most of the evening catches up with the bladder around 3am. Coincidently, this is also the time when various rabbits, raccoons, and stray dogs are cruising through the yard but we’re sure that has nothing to do with it. So last night when Prancer began her “scratch at the bedroom door and hope someone lets me in to let me out” ritual, we weren’t buying it. (And before you all ask why we don’t just let her sleep in the bedroom with us, she won’t. We’ve tried that.)
She began at the son’s door. After ignoring it the best he could he let her in. She layed down just long enough for him to fall asleep before she began pawing his hair. Once he covered his head with a quilt she became discouraged and started in at my bedroom door. After shouting “go lay down” as quietly as I could several times I finally got up and let her in. She sucked her little shedding body to the side of my bed until I stopped petting her then proceeded to scratch the carpet while spinning in circles. (We’ve learned the scratching is universal doggy communication for “if you’re not going to get up and move my bed then I’ll just have to dig to China before I’m comfortable.”) Surprisingly, once she settled in she fell asleep. I should have known something was up.
When I woke up in this morning Prancer sucked herself to my leg and followed me through the house and into the bathroom. It wasn’t until the return trip, with her still stuck to my leg like a leech, that I saw it. A mouse. Yes ladies and gentlemen, my purebred Japanese hunting dog is terrified of mice. Well, thunder and mice. And vets. Usually she whines when a creature enters her part of the house but I figure she’s getting old. The panic of the previous night is just the doggy dimensia setting in. Like her new habit of barking at the front door when you set a glass down in the kitchen but not when someone is knocking on the front door. Until…………it moved. (At this point I began scratching on the bedroom door and whining for my husband. I felt her pain.)
It seems while we were peacefully sleeping, my dog was being terrorized by a mouse who managed to get stuck, but not injured, in a plastic trap. It’s little back legs were scootching all over the floor like a kid that had crawled into a pillow case to find the last oreo cookie. (Now don’t tell me you never hid oreo cookies in your pillowcase!) I can imagine her terror as she scratched on door after door while the dreaded vampire frankenstein mouse scootched nearer and nearer. Apparently jumping on the couch hadn’t crossed her mind.
To make up for the trauma, we gave her a bone which she proceeded to carry around while whining and fretting over where to put it. To add insult to doggy injury, my son looked at her and said, “Poor puppy, and you expected ME to get up and take care of a mouse?” I’m not sure it was the kind of sympathy she was hoping for.
So here I am, apologizing to my elderly nuerotic dog. See you at 3am.











