A Cautionary Tail

Finally I am back in my office.  It’s a long story, but my office was without power for weeks.  Technically, it still is, but we’ve made a deal with Satan and he’s got us plugged right into the bowels of Hell and we’ve got electricity now.  And, trust me, you get used to the smell.

My crazy dog, whom I shall hereafter refer to as Darling Diva provided I can remember it, has this habit of absolutely, positively, without question, needing to pee at 2:00 a.m.  That’s an “a” people…as in in the middle of the freakin’ night. Every. Single. Night.

I don’t care if she peed at 1:59:59 a.m., at 2:00 a.m. she must go out to pee.

She also engages in strange behaviors while she’s out there.  These are things she doesn’t do at any other time.

I call it the “middle-of-the-fecking-night-crazies”.

Of course, hubby pretends to be asleep every night..conveniently..so I wind up taking her outside.

One night she bolted from the door to far end of the yard, ran around under some bushes, bolted halfway back across the yard, stopped to pee, and then ran full-tilt right back into the house.  Another time, she ran under the bushes and proceeded to twerk on the branches for a few seconds before peeing on them.

Recently, I opened the door to let her out and was hit with the unmistakable odor of  Eau de LePew, as in Pepe LePew.  If you have to ask who that is…you need to get yourself to YouTube immediately and watch some real cartoon characters.

Anyway, she hesitated to go out and I hesitated to let her.  We cautiously tiptoed out on the porch, looking around…did you know skunks are nearly blind, and if startled they will spray the startler without even asking who it is first.  This seems like a design flaw, to me. The worst smelling creature on the planet is virtually blind, and its only defense when surprised or threatened (and seriously, if its blind isn’t everything non-skunk a threat?) is to release a cloud of noxious gas so potent it’s used in chemical warfare? (No shit, I’m not making that up).

We didn’t see Monsieur LePew, but I didn’t let her dawdle either.  I told her to go pee and then we skedaddled back inside.

The next night, at you guessed it – 2:00 AM, Diva wanted out again.  I opened the door, and didn’t smell anything.  But, she bolted out to the porch, to the tree next to it and next thing I know,  she’s prancing around the yard with a ball of fur in her mouth.

She was quite pleased with herself, and I was praying she hadn’t just snatched Pepe up as a prize she was going to shake to death then eat.

Hey, people…she’s a dog, it’s what they do.

I didn’t know what to do.  On the one hand, if it was a skunk I just couldn’t see any possible scenario not involving hazmat suits, respirators, and quarantine..for both the dog and me.

On the other hand, if it wasn’t a skunk, then whatever she was about to chow down on would undoubtedly leave such a mess on her face, paws, and elsewhere that it would look like I’d stumbled into Zombieland. And, she’d be bringing that shit back into the house.

I don’t want these kinds of conundrums at 2:00 AM.

I briefly considered waking hubby, but in the time it  would take  him to get up and get outside one of these scenarios would be over and then I’d have a stinky/messy dog and a pissy spouse.

I sighed and decided I at least had to see what it was Diva was now standing a few feet in front of me, proudly showing off, still clenched lightly in her jaw.

Grumbling, I slowly inched over to her and quietly gave her the command to “drop it”. Now, that command works like a charm when it’s a ball, toy, my glasses, shoes, etc. I didn’t expect it to work when what I said was “drop it” and what she undoubtedly heard was “no, you cannot have your tasty morsel, and in fact, I want it so let go”.

But, she did as I asked.  And that’s when I saw the fluffy bunny tail.

I have never, in my whole life, been so happy to see the cottony puff of a little bunny’s tail.

The bunny lay there in the grass on its side and not moving.  Diva looked at me, crestfallen, then down at her prize.

I made her come to me, but she did so reluctantly, not once taking her eyes off “her” bunny.

We went inside, and I hoped Thumper was just stunned  and wouldn’t be lying there dead at sunrise (thankfully, he was gone).  Being a dog, Diva promptly forgot all about her late-night-almost-snack, and curled up to go back to sleep.