So, last night Sophie going crazy trying to get through the sliding glass door awakened me from my slumber. I glanced at the clock while fumbling for my glasses to see it was 4:35am. I walked up the door, grabbed her collar and praised her for being a ‘good girl’ when in reality we all know that what I really wanted to do was throttle her.
Looking out into the yard, for a change, I could actually see something out there. There was something reflecting from the light in the dining room. It was small light colored and moving thru the grass like it was searching for something.
“It’s either a ‘possum or an armadillo”, I thought.
Meanwhile Sophie was bouncing around the floor begging to be let out and I began to fear that she might wake up Jacob (or even worse … Pamela). So I herded her out of the bedroom and down the hall to the dining room where the other glass door leading to the backyard is. I held onto her collar and opened the door, the armadillo was right out there in the grass not 15 feet away. Sophie was just whining to be let go. I closed the door and bent down to pet her.
“Good girl, you know full well I can’t let you out there.”
“Come on, lets get a treat, you’ve done your job”
She was having ‘none’ of that, that armadillo was her right to chase and get out of ‘her yard’. She spit out the treat and went to stand by the kitchen door, looking back and forth between the door and me.
“Alright, lets take a look see where the mean ol’ Armadillo is..”
Resigned to my fate that I was going to have to take Sophie to the emergency vet soon. I held onto her collar and opened the sliding glass door there was no sign of the pest. We stood there in the doorway stock-still and waited to see what happened. I could feel Sophie trembling thru her collar. She was standing still but vibrating all over, I knew if I didn’t either let her go or distract her (ha!) she’d explode.
“Alright, go check it out”
I let go of her collar and she leapt out of door and onto the cool night lawn. To my surprise I didn’t hear her catch anything, I could see her large dark shape as she criss-crossed the lawn looking for her prey. Apparently the old armadillo was too wily for her and had hidden himself pretty good.
I sat down on the back stoop and watched and listened. I could hear her pounding across the yard huffing and puffing looking for some sign of the creature. When the mosquitos got too bad I tried to call her in but she was still on the trail. I went inside to the bug-free environs of the dining room to wait until she was done.
I was startled by the cool touch of a hand on my neck. I turned to find Pamela standing there behind me, she said her allergies were acting up and she wanted to check on her two brave hunters. I told her about the armadillo and asked her to try and get Sophie to come in. She opened the door and called out into the night.
“Sophie … come on girl, didja get that booger?”
In she came, head held high and tail a-waggin, proud to have once again made our yard safe.
Silly girl ..
Dave ...
