I Thought He Was Getting Old

And he will teach me to think! Look at this picture - such a sweeeeet iiinnocent adoooooorable doggy!

Ha.

He's Duke, a White Shepherd, and he will be nine this fall. He knows what's what around here. He knows that when the doors are closed he's not supposed to go outside ( ... well ... more on that in a bit). He knows that he isn't supposed to go running around the neighborhood. He knows all this stuff I tell you.

So.

Today's the first day of our County Fair, a sort of big deal in our little neck of the woods, so people are all over the place. Duke's inside with me and all is well. The doors are closed and he's a little pouty because he wants to be outside barking back and forth with his buddy barkers. 

But he hmmphs himself down with a disgusted thump in my studio and lies there looking through the doorway and out through the open window of my study. 

It's a beautiful day and lots of trees and flowers are blooming to beat heck so it smells like heaven out there - I've left the window open because the scent of our peonies wafts in through it, which pleases me significantly.

In front of that open window I've got a 40 inch barricade of sorts in front of the radiator, and there's a four foot drop to the ground outside of it. 

I'm sitting at my keyboard in the sewing room because I've been working in there, back and forth between my keyboard and the big sketch of Dunnottar that's on the wall in there (handiest thing ever, that wall, I have to say) and hear a noise in my study. Not a loud noise, just claws on wood floor noise, but not walking around clicking claws.

Going to investigate, I notice that Duke isn't sulking in the doorway any more.

Glancing out the open window I see why.

He's out there by the peonies, grinning in at me.

Bless his ever-lovin' sweeeeeeet doggy heeaart.

Which is not the least bit what I was saying out loud, let alone in my head.

Grabbing a leash, I head over to where the barker buddies are yapping their fool heads off, which is where he went the other time he got out. But Duke, he heads across the street (Main Street of Small Town USA, mind you, where there's actually traffic only a couple of times a year, today being one of those times), grinning happily at me over his shoulder.

Chasing him is a waste of time. He's a lot faster and more agile than I am.

I kind of give it a shot, though. It doesn't work.

Back in I go to my keyboard. If he gets dog-napped it's his own darned fault. And good luck to the 'nappers sez I.

In he comes to see where I am and what I'm doing. Before I can get between him and the front door which I've left open (closed the window) he's back out through it and sniffing at the tires of all the strange vehicles that are parked out front.

Pffft.

I'm an old lady. I'm not going to go chasing a dog all over town, not when he thinks that's the most fun game in the world.

'Leave him alone and he'll come home, wagging his tail behind him.'

To paraphrase an old nursery rhyme.

It fits, though.

In he comes when he hears (probably from a block away) me crackling open a bag of mints. He probably smells them too. 

So I throw him a mint (away from the path to the open door) and go close it.

What the heck.

He didn't climb over that barricade; he didn't push it over or out of his way; he jumped over it (and the radiator, and the window sill), out the open window, and down the four feet to the ground. There's only about a foot's clearance between the top of the barricade and the bottom of the open window and he never even touched either. If I weren't so mad at him I might be tempted to be impressed. 

Once when he was a pup he went from sitting beside my chair on the floor to sitting beside my keyboard on top of the table. Surprised him more than it did me I think, but there he was. I thought he was too old to be pulling such shenanigans. 

As for closed doors ... he learned early on how to work doorknobs. That's why there are no doorknobs on the doors that go out to his yard and the north yard. My house is old and has locks that use skeleton keys - I key lock the front door, not to keep people out but to keep Duke in. He could easily open the door that goes out into my courtyard but never does for some reason. Even if he did, he can't get anywhere except the courtyard, so what's the point? 

Of all days, he has to pick today to decide to jump out my study window.

Good grief.

This town has leash laws, you know Duke. Gonna get me into trouble one of these days, he is. Grrrrrr ...