Possumworld

Those of you who know me, or read regularly about our life here in the Possum Kingdom, have probably figured out by now that we are not exciting people. We live a calm, routine-oriented life and humans and pets have all come to appreciate.

When anything occurs to challenge that routine it’s almost as unusual as the famous blue moon!

Things started out normally enough last night. Since Miz Peaches has come to stay, we’ve slightly changed our routine to something that actually works better for all concerned. We used to walk Shmoo after dinner, but that always seemed to mean that while we were trying to actually eat, there was a wild, pacing beast trying to force us to go faster, faster, faster!

Peaches had trouble making it through the whole night when she first moved in, so we started taking the dogs for a last walk right before going up to bed. But that seemed to be an awfully short interval of time between post-dinner and pre-bed walks.

Instead, I now feed the dogs earlier, then we take them for their third long walk of the day. At this time of year that means that 2 or our 3 walks are in actual daylight, which has been a nice bonus for the human part of the contingent. The canine part doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.

Besides being able to see where we are going, it also means that JM and I get to eat a little later and also to enjoy it a lot more. The dogs are calmer, and on the rare occasions when we have dinner guests, everyone gets to sit and relax without interruption. It’s pretty much a win-win situation.

By the time we’ve finished eating and I’ve finished doing dishes, the dogs are ready to go up to Base Camp 2, where the TV is located. They have a bizarre little routine that they do, as they jockey for who gets to get up on the couch first, but eventually peace reigns and we can all settle in.

Generally, about an hour later, I go back downstairs to make a coffee, but the dogs are so sacked out that they just sleep on.

But not last night. For some reason when I went downstairs everyone (canine) started to pace and bark and scratch at the door and generally act weird. Finally, JM opened the TV room door and they came racing down the stairs. I made my coffee, went back upstairs and we all tried to settle down again. Shmoo did, but not Peaches. She was stressed and we couldn’t figure it out.

At around 9, which is about an hour earlier than usual, we took them out for their walk, thinking that was the problem. But even that was weird. Peaches, who normally does her thing as soon as we’re out the door, was antsy. And, when she finally DID do what needed to be done, she kind of stopped in the middle because she’d “seen” something and wanted to give chase. Very unusual behavior.

When we went back inside, I cracked. I was afraid we wouldn’t get any sleep at all, so I gave her a Xanax hoping that would calm her down just a little. We managed to watch THE DAILY SHOW, just barely, and finally went up to bed rather earlier than usual. Luckily, once we were up there everyone DID go to their sleeping place and the night passed calmly.

It wasn’t until this morning that I discovered what a bad mother I am. We had taken our morning walk (an amazing experience, because the moon was so bright it was like having a spotlight on us) and come back home. I realized I needed to snag a bag of dog treats from the garage and went downstairs. To my surprise I found that JM had left the garage door open after putting the recycling out last night! No wonder the dogs were freaked; they smelled the outside air and probably a cat had wandered into the garage as well. The TV room is right above the garage, and it’s the only part of our house that doesn’t have good insulation between the two floors.

Poor dogs! They were trying to tell us that something was wrong and the humans were too stupid to understand. We do keep the door between the garage and the house locked (more to keep the door closed than for security, but it provides both), so there was no risk of an intruder. Also, the garage door was only open about 18 inches or so, and I don’t think anyone would have noticed particularly. But we do have a lot of cats back there, and they would certainly have come in to see what was what.

So, today I need to apologize to Shmoo and, more particularly to Miz Peaches LaRoo, who were both on the job and couldn’t make us see the truth.

Ciao for now,

Randy