All Clear, Havoc. All clear.

May 2, 2011

I’ve been away for a while again.  Sorry.  Writing.  The website needs updating, as does the blog.  Soon, there will be excerpts, giveaways, a newsletter… All singing, all dancing, and redesigned.

But I am back here now because something happened this weekend that was totally blog worthy.

No, not that.  Or that, either.  Something else.

It has been kind of an eventful couple of days, hasn’t it?  I spent Friday glued to the TV watching the wedding.  And then, of course, the news broke that they’d caught Osama Bin Laden.

But never mind that. The really important thing happened this morning.

We have a labradoodle named Havoc.  He is named Havoc for obvious reasons.  Havoc is two parts fuzzy cunning and one part enthusiastic stupidity. He can work out some simple problems easily.  Like what to do if the ball is under the couch (Stare until someone moves the furniture). Or what to do when you really have to go out.  (Attack mom, dragging on her arm until she screams at someone else to take care of the dog).

But other things leave him completely stumped.  Stairs, for example.  He is almost three years old.  But it took most of the first year to convince him to take even the simple porch stairs without being dragged like a lead weight on a leash.  The second year was for learning that it was possible to use the garage steps in two directions without opening a door.  The poor thing would get stuck half way, head down by the door and butt on the upper landing. If we didn’t notice and rescue him, he would stand there for an hour or more in silence, knees shaking, unable to comprehend a way out of this (Yes, there is room to turn around.  It was just in Havoc’s mental blind spot.)

But he has never quite figured out how to manage the stairs to the second floor of the house.  Every night, he watches us go to bed, sitting on the landing in abject despair.  He can make it up three or four if teased by a cat.  He will occasionally grab onto my foot and try to drag me back to his level.  But he avoids the full trip like it’s a hike up Everest.

Until 4:45 this morning, when I heard my husband wake up and say “What are you doing here?”

Havoc was standing by the bed, wagging furiously.

“This is where you go at night, seriously?  OH MY GOD?”

Scamper scamper scamper.  Wagwagwagwag.  “And there’s a door, and there’s a door, and there’s a door.  And there you are again.  And there’s a hall.

EVERYBODY GET UP.

CAT FOOOOOOOOD.”

Chompchompchomp.

“Rrrrwowwwwwwwwwwww!  Hisssssssssssssss!”

“Fluffer!  Hi!  HIHIHIHIHIHI HI!”

You get the picture. 

As far as I can tell, there is only one explanation for this sudden, middle of the night discovery.

My dog thought we had Osama Bin Laden hidden in the guest room.

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