Doing His Duty

My dog trainer is always reminding us that our dogs live to make us look like fools. Today Kona gave me some of his best work.

Kona the Crack Monster was the only one thrilled about the new piles of snow this morning, and I let him out to dive into drifts while I made breakfast. I looked out the window and saw him belly flopped into a snowdrift with something hanging out of his mouth.

Something big and white and flapping in the wind, which made him insanely happy to pin it down and tear it apart. I squinted through the blowing snow and realized it was one of those big square styrofoam take-out containers. After my initial 'where the hell did that come from' I remembered it's garbage day and there's 40 mph winds. Seeing as how it was just 4:00 this morning he woke us up puking up a piece of something stupid he ate yesterday, I knew I had to get the damn thing away from him.

Grabbed my snow boots and threw on the nearest coat I could find, which happened to be my dress coat with my favorite new gloves in the pockets. I'm wading through knee deep drifts in the yard trying to chase the now-ecstatic Kona, who has torn the thing apart and is gleefully running around me in circles.

Ever tried to pick pieces of white styrofoam out of knee deep snowdrifts in 40 mph winds in a snowstorm while a 90 pound puppy body slammed you and tried to steal them back? Good times.

Once I found most of the foam pieces I turned to back in. At which point he dove in, pulled the glove off my left hand, and ran away. Ordinarily I wouldn't care, expect that these were my brand new, just-got-them to-go-with-my-new-dress-coat, match-my-new-scarf-gloves.

So now I'm wading at him to get the glove back, he thinks I'm going to play now so he drops it in the snow and runs off.

If you had told me before this morning that a bright blue glove could be lose in a split second on a field of pure white I'd have said you were crazy. But he managed to bury it when he bounded away. It finally turned up buried under about six inches of snow.

Half the neighborhood was out shoveling. Nice to know we gave them something to laugh at while they worked.