Dog Gone

Once again, last night, we were messing around in the yard (I'm making a fountain out of that big red pot). It was starting to get dark so we were cleaning up. I shooed the dog out of the barn, and closed the door. He ran around the yard a little in his normal fashion, and we got busy getting V to bed, etc. A short time later, our neighbor came to our back patio door to ask if we had a bulb he needed and he tapped on the patio door. No big deal, but I thought to myself, "that's strange, I wonder why the dog didn't bark?"

Now, don't get me wrong, this is no Rottweiler, but usually he'll at least bark a little if someone comes to the house, especially in the dark, and especially in the unconventional fashion of coming to the back patio door. I didn't give it much more thought.

So, we were sitting on the deck sipping a pomegranate martini (yum! Good idea Auntie!) and the neighbors were continuing their sporadic fireworks. I asked Brian where the dog was. Perplexed, he got up and looked around the yard. No dog. Then he looked in our bedroom. No dog. He proceeded to check every nook and cranny, including the kid's rooms. No dog.

Wonderful.

Then, being the good detective that I am, I noticed a slight disruption of the mulch near the side gate. And still no Kirby. I figured he got scared of the fireworks and since we sealed off the deck so he couldn't go under it anymore, he took off. I meandered through the neighborhood for a while, flashlight in hand, calling out "Kirby, Kirby." My neighbors must have thought I was having a nightmare about vacuums or something. Still no dog.

Well, we left the light on for him and the side gate open in case he decided to make his way home and went to bed. Brian was furious. He said, "Another night that I can't relax because of this damn dog..." Well, he said more than that, but I can't publish it. Some of the neighbor kids saw me looking for him, and they started looking too. I told them I'd give the one that found him $5. Then I told them if they returned him to Brian, he probably charge them $5. Brian's recent renewal of his hate for the dog came up when we found a very large hole begun in our very new (<6 hours completed) landscaping. But that's another story.

I went out to get the paper early this morning, took a pause, and looked around. No dog. I started talking to our neighbor across the street (he's an old guy... who goes to breakfast at 5:30am?) and telling him "Hi Mr. Sunny (yeah thats really his name). Our dog got out last night..." and at about that time, from out of no where comes Kirby. He came up from behind me so I have no idea where he was; he just appeared. I guess he likes us after all. Brian seemed disappointed except for the fact that he wasn't going to have to explain that Kirby ran away to the kids in 2 and a half hours.

Who would've thought that we, of all people, would have a stupid dog afraid of fireworks.