The great wheel of Karma just has a way of seeking you out, tracking you down, and rolling over you so hard, by the time you climb out of that rut, you will need a haircut. I prefer keeping Karma at a comfortable arm's length, but every now and then she wraps me in a bear hug. And I always have it coming.
My neighbors across the cove got a puppy last Christmas. No idea what kind of pooch it is. Sort of looks like a hyena, if hyenas wore dark gray fake rabbit fur coats. She's cuter than that sounds. Anyway the thing that is NOT cute is that she is a Yappy Dog. When she is left outside she is smart enough to voice her displeasure. Sadly for all of us, she is left outside fairly often. We have a running bet at our house which will fail first, her bark or my sanity. We make snarky, superior, self-righteous comments about their obvious failures as pet owners. We agree we are so so thankful that OUR dog is not a yappy dog and a nuisance to the neighborhood.
Flash forward to one recent weekend when our lovely next door neighbors invited us to dinner at their house. We happily agreed and walked the 20 yards over, homemade potato salad and beer cooler in hand. As we sat in the kitchen socializing, I kept hearing an intermittent honking, like a defective car horn trying to outlast a dying battery. Turns out it was our dog, barking at the indignity of being left behind. We have a little-used full glass door on the side of the house that faces that particular neighbor, and she had seen us traipse over there without her. I'll fix this, I thought. I excused myself and walked back over to draw the blinds on that door so she wouldn't see where we went. Being extra tricky, I fed her a dog treat and left out of the opposite side of the house so she would think I was just going to work or to the Piggly Wiggly as per usual. As I was doubling back around the front of the house on the way to the neighbors, I glanced at the front door (which is also glass). I was a little surprised to see my pooch standing there waiting for me - she got there before I did! Huh. Impressive. How she knew I wasn't driving to the Piggly Wiggly, I'm not sure. She usually doesn't give a rat's behind when I leave the house - can hardly be bothered to raise an eyebrow, much less get up and follow me to to the door. Oh well, no worries, I thought. Even if she does track me back to the other side of the house, the blinds are closed now, so end of problem.
Yeah, you guessed it - I didn't even get halfway back to the neighbors' when I heard, well, yapping. I turned to see a little pink nose nosing aside the now-closed wooden blinds on the side door to get a better visual on my position.
The battle of human wits vs. canine wits was so on!
I'll fix this, I thought. Again. Back in I went. No treat this time for Naughty Dog - I was all business. We have a sun room on the far side of the house where she likes to recline, queen-like, for her afternoon naps. Confident in my superior human intellect, I led her into the sun room, closed the door behind me, and headed back to the neighbors'. Before I could even get out the door, she had escaped the sun room through an open window (it's a weird house - yes there are windows in some of our INTERIOR walls . . . ) squirting through her conveniently located escape hatch like the proverbial greased pig, and had beaten me to the back door. There she waited, blinds nosed aside, ready to yap ambush (yambush?) me as soon as I left the house. Never once in our several months of living here had I seen her go through those windows in the sun room. I didn't even know she knew they were there - they were partially blocked by a sofa. But she knew.
Okay, my confidence in my superior human intellect was officially shaken. Three times I had tried to fake her out. Three times I had failed. I went back inside, eliminated all means of escape from the sun room, and left her in there with a very stern parting look. You know how dogs just hate when you look at them sternly. I may have even shaken my finger at her. I returned to the festivities next door. By this time everyone was wondering what I was doing that was taking so long. I hated to admit I was literally at my wits' end trying to outwit a dog. But there it was. And yes, you could still hear a faint yapping from a northerly direction. I so wanted to pass it off as the dog across the cove.
My husband, sniffing out my unspoken failure, joined the fray and excused himself to go next door and do what I could not. I am not sure how he accomplished it. I know what you are thinking, but he would sooner drink Budweiser than harm a hair on our pooch's head. Trust me when I say neither of those things is going to happen. I am guessing his solution was related to the empty freezer bag of ham hock bones I found shoved behind the recycling bins. Whatever he did, it worked, and mercifully the yapping came to an end.
So, mission accomplished, Karma! Lesson learned! Little Yappy Dog can yap all she wants now. Let her bark from 1:20pm until 5:23 pm, which she did in fact do one afternoon last week. Let her bark until her barker is all barked out. All I do now is think Bless her heart and reach for the headphones.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, I hope you'll take a minute and subscribe to my email list.