The Mind of a Dog

Rubin was tired last night. We'd played a rousing game of fetch and he got chased by Decoy, the large and young yellow lab puppy at the park. Rubin LOVES to be chased so by the time we got home, he was pretty exhausted. We headed up to bed, I smeared Vick's Vapor Rub on my chest, downed some cough syrup AND a Tylenol PM and prepared for a long, relaxing night of sleep.

At midnight Rubin woke up and needed to go out. Okay, that made sense as he hadn't done all of his business before he went to bed. Out we went and all of the sudden, Mr. Sleepy became Mr. Spunky and he would NOT, for the life of me, come back in the house. He wanted to play chase again only this time he wanted ME to chase HIM.

Drugged and still sick, I was NOT in the mood. (This is a post that REQUIRES many words in all capital letters.) In fact, I was PISSED. It was midnight. I was tired. I was feeling an urgent need to sleep well as I hadn't for the past few nights. I've been re-fighting a cold and feeling as if the cold was moving into something a bit more serious -- like bronchitis and I DID NOT want bronchitis. And there he was, bouncing around the backyard, barking at me.

I tried everything. I came into the house and sat in the living room waiting for him to follow. He did, but then, when I got up to close the back door, he raced out the door, bounded off the deck and barked some more. I followed him around the yard TRYING to herd him back into the house, but he has the "loop" down and knows how to avoid me and my outstretched arms.

This was a dog who was exhausted at 10, so exhausted, he barely made it upstairs to the bedroom and flopped onto his bed at the foot of ours. Two hours later, he was possessed -- a young and wild puppy again who wanted only to play keep away.

My next attempt was to go back to bed. I left the back door open and just hoped it neither got too cold nor too inviting for local criminals. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't ignore the quietly growling dog at the end of the bed. He sat there, like a statue and softly whispered a groan again and again as if to say, "Hey, we're not done playing yet!"

So I got up and he raced down the stairs and leapt off the back deck ready for me to follow.

"What would the Dog Whisperer do?" I thought in my sleepy, drugged stupor.

I grabbed the various pieces of deck furniture and blockaded the brat into the corner of the yard. As he always does when he knows he's caught, he came right to me, his head bowed and his tail down. "Damn," I heard him mumble under his panting breath.

After closing the back door, we headed back up to bed. I was still steamy and he knew it. He went straight to his bed, flopped down, sighed that impatient sigh of his, and didn't even ask to come up on the bed with me. He knew better.

This morning, I could smell the rain through the open windows. Rubin was still on his bed and with one work, "Okay" he knew he was absolved of his sins and allowed up on the bed. We cuddled for awhile and I asked in vain, "What's going on in that mind of yours?" He just sighed, licked his lips, and nuzzled under my arm with a breathy snort and a gentle thumping of his skinny, flaring tail.

I go to my first day of work at noon. I have a few chores to take care of before I hop on my bike and pedal to work in the rain. One includes a long, exhausting walk with the dog currently snoring under my desk. He's tired this morning. No doubt. He's not as young as he used to be though sometimes, around midnight it appears, he fancies himself a cute, tiny puppy who has not yet learned to listen to his mother.