Dogs, dogs, dogs

Sometimes lately I find myself adrift in an existential funk as the baseball bat of reality whacks me on the back of my head and I realize that I exist to serve the needs of dogs.

Normally when I suffer this recurring epiphany, I'm thinking of politicians, bureaucrats and LEOs. Right now, I mean actual dogs. Fur. Four legs. Big soulful eyes. You know: Canines.

I went to bed late, so woke up well after my usual time. My first thought was that this could be a problem, because when Ghost and Little Bear go out for the first time in the dark they're usually eager to do their business and come back in. When it's already light, they're not always so tractable. This was an issue because I needed to get them squared away before I could go deal with W's dogs.

Fortunately the boys didn't give me the anticipated trouble, so I gave them their treats, locked them in the lair and went to open up W's lair. Beauty popped out at once but nobody else would move. I saw Bruno, her pit bull, lying on the couch and looking woebegone. He refused to move. Redgirl wouldn't come down from the bed. There were dark smears all over the floor. Somebody had had a bad night.

Sigh - okay, into each dog-nanny's life some diarrhea must come. I cleaned up the mess as best I quickly could, made a mental note to find W's mop when the temperature warmed up, and propped his door open. Neither Bruno nor Redgirl are prone to wander, as Beauty is. I collected Beauty and took her back to my lair.

A few minutes later I heard Bruno barking outside W's lair. He's not a big barker, so it required investigation. Ghost and Beauty started raising hell inside my own tiny lair. I opened the door and they bulleted outside with Little Bear in tow.

They raced down the path on the slope of the ridge, headed for the meadow. Little Bear paused at the summit. His body language said, "Wanna go! Wanna go!" But he didn't follow the older dogs. Ghost stopped near the bottom, turned around and stared at Little Bear as if to say, "Well, kid? You wanna join the posse or not? C'mon, there's coyotes to scare!" LB's big flag of a tail arced over his back and he charged down the slope, paws drumming on the ground like a horse's hooves. I watched the Three Caballeros charge off, leaving a line of dust. LB has gotten to the size where you could stuff Ghost and Beauty both into his hide and leave room for lunch. If I were going off to bark at coyotes I'd want him along.

I spent a moment smiling at LB's inclusion before remembering that I'd just sent the three dogs most likely to get me phone calls from the neighbors off into the wild unsupervised. The odds of this not working out well were significant. So I sloped on down toward the driveway in the direction they'd disappeared. Bruno and Redgirl had emerged onto W's porch, but as usual they didn't offer to come along. I walked the quarter-mile or so to the road; the dogs had either had their fun by now and would be interested in coming home, or they were miles away already. Mongo only pawn in game of life.

A few minutes later Beauty popped up over a rise, followed by the other two. They were quite pleased with themselves, and trotted back to me ready to get treats and come lie down for a while.

Just then the sun broke over the ridge. It's likely to be a long day, and maybe a string of them till I get this "combined pack" thing sorted out.