Whew. I’m still catching my breath. Alaina wrote recently that Pippi’s the best little dog ever. I guess that’s true, though right now I’m not feeling so warm and bubbly toward her. Pippi – the little bugger. Why am I not so happy? Let me tell you.
Forty-five minutes ago I was out in our newly fenced backyard (more on that in future posts). Pippi was carefully checking out the extents of her new play area. I thought she was in a far corner of the yard, so went out the gate on one side of the house to move the sprinkler. As I went through the gate and grabbed the sprinkler, I see a reddish-brown blur off to my right. The next thing I know, Pippi is not inside the fence. She’s sniffing around the front of my neighbor’s house. She refuses to come back into the yard. She refuses to come when I tell her I’m going ‘inside.’ That usually works. This morning it didn’t. She didn’t even come when I offered her a treat. (Did she know I didn’t have one?)
Apparently Pippi was in an exploring mood. Checking out Mike’s garage and flowers weren’t enough for her – she had to examine the next neighbor’s property. And the next. And the next. Perhaps my trying to catch her didn’t help; she certainly didn’t want to be caught. As I’m sprinting down the sidewalk, I’m thinking about the irony of our newly fenced yard and Pippi running free, and wondering if the fence will have been built in vain if I don’t catch her.
Did you know min pins come from greyhounds? Pippi was showing off her lineage this morning. I didn’t come close to catching her in the open field. The closest I came was once when she stopped to relieve herself (no, I wasn’t worried about playing fair), once when she was checking out a male dog’s posting, and once when she was sniffing some trash bags. Tantalizing close, but no cigar. So I chased some more. I soon gave up much hope of catching her, but just wanted to keep her in my sight. That wasn’t always easy – she could outdistance me so quickly.
It didn’t help matters that I was barefoot and shirtless. I definitely had no plans of taking an early morning run through the neighborhood this morning, especially like that. I’m sure any watching neighbors either found humor or cause for worry in the situation. There were no offers to help.
And eventually Pippi headed back toward home. I don’t know if that’s because I managed to get on the ‘far’ side of her and head her back this way, or if she just had had enough exercise and, having found spots to answer the call of duty, generally felt better. I don’t know if my pleading cries of ‘come’ and ‘inside’ finally registered and stirred something inside her little head or if that’s just what she wanted to do. But she tried to go in the front door of our house with me – it was locked – and then pranced back through the open gate through which she bolted seemingly hours before. I quickly closed it, but Pippi didn’t even notice. She was already waiting to go in the back door.
And now here she sits, curled up on a blanket at the other end of the couch, sound asleep. I believe she’s worn out (as am I). Maybe even proud of herself. I do love her. The little bugger.
1 comment:
Dude, that sounds brutal. I once chased down and tackled a siberian husky my parents somehow let us keep. It took 30 minutes or so. I chased her all through the neighborhood and had to literally tackle her and carry the dog home in my arms. I had the advantage of my Nike Air's though. :) Had I been barefoot, I would have never caught her. I remember telling myself, I'll never do that again.
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