Today, we are going to teach large German Shepherd mixes how to fly!
Killick, while apparently enjoying our move, has none-the-less developed a certain phobia of being alone at home. Back in Bothell we could leave him in the house for hours on end and we would have no problems save an occassional digging through unsecured garbage.
I suspect that he has not yet come to the understanding that we are HOME now and not on some extended camping trip or something. It seems that everytime we leave he goes insane trying to get out of the house.
On the first occassion we came home to find the screens in the master bedroom on the second floor laying on the ground below and everything near a window throughout the house in a state of disarray. On a second occassion we came home from Church to be dotingly greeted by Killick outside. After searching the house we found that he'd located a partly opened window and pushed his way out, which included a good five foot drop to the grass below.
Thinking we'd learned our lesson, the most recent time we left him alone we THOUGHT we'd secured the house. But when we returned, he was out again and we were totally oblivious as to how he managed it. I assumed he'd developed an Ephremite ability to mystically transport himself through walls or something.
Shockingly, I found that the window next to the "hobbit hole" on the second floor had its screen knocked out (knocked out and onto the floor INSIDE!) and the hinged window was ajar about 7 inches. Outside the window is the metal roof to the back porch and upon it I noticed Killick's slipping paw marks in the dew leading to the edge of the roof and what must be at least a 9 foot drop. Indeed, once he'd gotten through the window, there was no stopping the slide and subsequent fall. Now the bottom edge of the window is close to four feet high and if you've seen Killick's head, you too will have a hard time imaginging how he squeezed it through a 7 inch opening with a large push bar in the middle...but he did it. Furthermore, as I look out that window, even now, I get a bit of vertigo thinking about sliding down that roof and falling off!
I do not know how that dog managed not to break his leg or hip doing this stunt. He just doesn't seem to be built to sustain such a fall, and yet he did - seemingly without a scratch.
So, from now on, he will find himself tied to the font porch while we are gone - at least until he stops his mystical transportation and levitation tricks. As any novice ought to know: OBEDIENCE first. When the elder (that's me) says SIT and STAY, he means it! And no more of this talk about the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" either.
:)
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- Steve K
PS LOVED that line about "zeal for King and Country". Patrick Obrien has furnished your mind as well, I see. Memory eternal to Lord Nelson!
Liz
(who would rather be at the retreat, but is instead getting ready for a long-planned dinner party on Sunday)
I just wish our dear Basil`s pursuit of theosis didn`t involve chewing the wooden floors in our house, LOL
Steve K: Yes, and were it from any white man denying Hugo's oil we'd likely cry: O what pitiful stuff!
Liz...Killick has yet to master retrieving the Port, despite how many times I tell the dog that it stands by him.
Elizabeth: Killick chews on little else besides my kids and a strange frog candle he found in the woods.
Phillipa, it seems having him outside on the porch suits him just fine. After Liturgy we found him relaxing and waiting to greet us as if time had stood still in our absence. He even barked, "Which it is about time you got home."
sf