I typically let the dogs out in the backyard for one last chance to pee before finally going to bed. I’m a night owl, so their last trip outside usually is really late. No big deal except recently Belle has decided to open up to the neighborhood and tell them all her deep, dark secrets. In a very loud voice. This is also typically when she decides “come” means “louder. and dance!”
Last night was way more than a confessional. I let the two little turds out sometime around 2am and immediately heard them – both of them – go crazy. Barking. Lunging at the fence. Going insane. Scared me for a minute (what if the boogeyman is on the other side of the fence), but soon I realized they were trying to reach something on the top of the fence, sort of hidden in some vines. Polly Possum was back. I’ve had possum visitors before and the dogs bark a bit, but last night was different. They went full-on mental. And they were actually jumping up to try to reach it, which they hadn’t done before, and were getting dangerously close.
Sweet Bear reluctantly came when I called in my serious-I-mean-business-get-your-butt-over-here-NOW voice. Belle? Maybe she had a brief spell of hearing loss. It would explain the lack of hearing and volume control. She was behind/inside bushes in the mud, trying to tear the fence down. At 2am. Screaming at Polly. At 2am. With me screaming at her. Eventually the sound of my voice apparently made it through her selective hearing, and she very reluctantly came over to me where I could grab her to make her go back inside. Lessons learned? Obedience lessons have a limited shelf life (definitely time for a refresher) and possums either (a) are delicious or (b) pose a great danger that must be eliminated.
Changing the subject to a different newf-bite-sized creature, my next door neighbors have adopted a little chihuahua girl who is terrified of her shadow. Poor little thing doesn’t really let anyone else get too close, but she’s realized I usually have treats. Now she typically comes running up (keeping her buffer distance, but getting closer) whenever she sees me. She knows the chicken chips are coming.
Becky (rksquared) - First, I feel terrible that I haven’t properly congratulated you on you new venture, so CONGRATULATIONS!
Second, I am definitely familiar with the sound of a newfie’s deep, bellowing bark at odd hours of the night…although, with Phaneuf, it usually is the boogieman that she’s barking at! Of course this afternoon she saw two mallard ducks sitting in our neighbor’s front yard (from inside the house), and went nuts barking at them. We put her out in our [fenced] yard to see what she’d do, and she ignored them, but once she was back in the house the barking started all over again.
She’s so silly…and so falsely tough. 🙂