Bad Dog

Last night my cold was really making me feel tired and not very ambitious. At bedtime, I needed to take Dog out for the last time. Wouldn’t you know that stupid dog saw a semi-feral cat and pulled the flex-lead out of my hands and took off into the woods? He probably wouldn't have been able to do that, if I was my normal self, but I was feeling like a limp dishrag.

Dog did what he always does on the few occasions he's gotten away from me. He runs until the flexi gets tangled and then he sits there. No amount of calling him will get a response—no barking, whining, etc. He just sits. Which makes it difficult to find him at 10:30 at night in the woods.

So I went back into the cabin, got my headlamp and headed down the mountain to an access road that travels in same the direction of where Dog looked like he was heading. The dirt road was mushy and slushy and slippery, and I was in no mood for it. But I hadn’t gone too far before I saw eyes shining in the dark and knew it was Bad Dog. Unfortunately, he was on the other side of a usually small stream with a steep bank on the far side. I sloshed my way across the stream and then struggled up the bank. There at the bottom of a tree was my Bad Dog, tangled, just as I expected him to be.

I crawled around through the low brush, cursing and untangling him while he sat there looking miserable. Then I looked up and saw the treed feral cat gazing down at us. Eventually I got Bad Dog untangled and headed back towards the cabin, not following the access road this time, as I could see the lights from the back of my cabin up ahead, so I made a bee-line towards them. Just what I didn’t need! Bad Dog spent the night in the doghouse, both literally and figuratively.