| The Dog |
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| “Get, dog,” mommy said to me as she grabbed my collar and roughly pulled me out the back door. I have no idea why she was so angry sounding. I was just lying in my usual spot on the kitchen rug and enjoying the warm sunshine coming through the window. It isn’t my fault she couldn’t remember I was laying there. After looking mournfully at the back door for a few minutes, it appeared I was out for a while at least. Sniffing the fresh air, I looked around for a new napping place. Mom had interrupted my midmorning snooze. At this rate, I was going to have to sleep through lunchtime to catch up. Glancing around, I put my nose to the ground. “Oh, that is an interesting smell,” I snuffed. Following it slowly, no need to hurry, I wove back and forth between the chicken coop and the large tree. Another animal had marked the tree recently. After declaring my authority to the tree, I wandered out into the middle of the sunniest spot in the yard and plopped down in the dirt. “Now for some long overdue sleep,” I sighed. How can I describe the luxury of lying in the sun? I prefer my favorite spot on the kitchen rug, but the middle of the yard is a good second choice. The warm air, the cool dirt, the smell of heated dust specks, the liquid feeling you get in your muscles—ah, life is good. My eyelids grew heavy and I was just beginning to fade into the land of rawhides and tennis balls, when I smelled something off. Something was not right, but I couldn’t place the smell. Sighing deeply, I breathed the smell in and then huffed it out. Fox, I realized groggily. “Nothing to worry about,” I told myself as the fog of sleep lulled me off to dreamland, “nothing to worry….” I had finished my first bowl of roast beef leftovers and was about to start on a tasty rawhide as big as my doghouse, when I was rudely awakened. Something heavy jumped onto my back bringing me abruptly back to the reality of waiting for sundown for my dinner. As I blinked my eyes into focus, I glimpsed a bit of bushy brown tail disappearing beneath a bush on the far side of the yard. “That fox I smelled before,” I realized groggily. The thought of chasing him did glimmer in my thoughts for a moment, a very brief moment, but it never had a chance. The warm sunshine and the desire to get back to my rawhide were too enticing. Who would want to chase a fox anyway? They are too much work to catch. |
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