Dog, Gone

After feeding the dogs their breakfast Tuesday morning and letting them outside, I instructed them to meet me at the front gate for their morning walk. I took a bodacious bong rip and donned a second hoodie, before joining them out in the cold air. I paused at the Subi long enough to snag the two dog leashes, left there after our trip to Ukiah on Monday, before heading out to the gate to meet Ellie Mae and Freddie. Approaching the gate, it was immediately evident that Freddie the French bulldog was a dog, gone.

Only Ellie Mae awaited me at the gate, obviously aware that the pesky little Frenchie was not there, but at a loss to explain. Or maybe she did but her explanation fell on deaf ears.

“Ellie Mae! Stop barking!”

Both dogs love walking in the snow.

I had no frame of reference for Fred’s disappearance because like most dogs, he lives for this daily walk up the driveway to Bell Springs Road. I know he loves his walks because he tows me up the steep incline every morning, and makes me dig in my heels on the way back down, to avoid a face-plant. Besides, I had just let him out the front door a minute before.

All that notwithstanding, where was the little dude? Digging something up of a gopherous nature out in the orchard? Galloping toward Lito’s spot after escaping the two-acre compound? Or strewn out over the ground after being toyed with by a bobcat? 

“Let’s go, Ellie Mae. If Freddie has better things to do than walk with us, we’ll just leave him to his bid-ness.”

Oh, those eyes...

Recognizing that those were some pretty bold words for the situation, I carried out my threat and walked with a pretty little rescue pup from Covelo, just as I did before a little bulldog burrowed his way into our hearts. Well, into my heart, anyway. Though the mom in Ellie Mae did a lot of mothering when Freddie was still a pup, she now sees him for the nefarious little dog that he is, vying for my attention.

And though my attention span is only a fraction of what it once was, it still surpasses the collective attention span of two sweet fur babies.

Upon returning from our walk, I went around hollering Freddie’s name, as though after all this time he would realize that the joke was on him. My hollering produced no results, except to get all of the other dogs in the 'hood barking. 

I took care of the chickens, moved a couple of wheelbarrows of firewood, cleaned up the detritus from coffee and a fruit salad and texted Lito:

“Freddie is MIA. Is he over at your spot?”

“Not that I am aware of,” came the prompt response. Since Freddie rarely goes anywhere without everyone being aware he is around, I’m certain that Lito would have known it if Fred was anywhere in his ‘hood.

“Shoot, shucks and duckens,” I said to Ellie Mae, or possibly something more colorful, I can’t rightly say.

“Nothing more to be done but roll up a phattie and hit the road, searching for a little bulldog, who must be off on an excursion. What do you say, Ellie Mae?”

Oh, those ears...

And so it was that together, Ellie and I both found Fred, by opening the car door at the same moment that Fred opened up his sleepy eyes. Sprawled on the car’s back seat, he peered out at us as if to say, “Are we there yet?”

I flashed back to when I had snagged the dog leashes from this same car, and how it was darker than Freddie’s coat, as I fumbled around the back seat until I had both leashes. Not needing a headlamp in the bright moonlight outside, I had not had one on at the precise moment that Fred traded places with the leashes. 

Luckily I already had a celebratory Bell Springs Bomber rolled for the occasion.