Releasing the Hounds

There's a chill in the Sunday air as we start February and it rains on and off all day, a quiet, polite patter I can hear on the roof and see on the leaves as they bend over the railing and toward the back door.  Big, fat, and splashy raindrops hang on the branches - they sway and glisten against the dark sky - then fall with soft thuds onto the deck and the muddy ground cover.  The dogs, so eager to go outside that they rush the back door, suddenly turn cautious, carefully making their way off the wet deck and onto the slick leaves with light, little footsteps.  Shivering and looking miserable, the small brown dog returns immediately while the black one, barely damp and hardly bothered, noses her way to the back fence and begins to bark.  The little dachshund joins in, his coarse hound-like voice sounds gravely and very much in charge.  As always, he has to be coaxed back inside - he enjoys starting the chain letter effect of getting all the dogs in the neighborhood talking to one another and then pretending he wasn't involved.

Most mornings, he has to be manually retrieved.  While the other two go about their business then trot obediently back inside and jump willingly into their kennels, he finds a place where he blends in and then calmly sits and pretends he doesn't hear me calling.  I make my way into the yard and spend several minutes trying to locate him - he's perfected the art of camouflage and he sits like a statue - then carry him back inside.  He immediately runs into the sun room and I follow, scoop him up and carry him back to the kennel.
After a year and a half of this slightly comedic routine, I've given up on his ever accepting confinement.  I slip a biscuit through the bars and harden my heart against those sad, pleading, manipulative eyes.  Twice a day, five days a week we practice this little routine and it kills me every time but were I to leave him free, the cats would know no peace and there's no telling what the condition of the house would be at days end.

I'd so hoped that he would see the other two dogs go so willingly to kennels and follow their example but it wasn't to be.  Perhaps he was confined his entire first four years, perhaps he sees it as a punishment, perhaps it's just a naturally occurring stubborn streak, I doubt I'll ever know.

The bright side is coming home at night to an avalanche of welcome.  The moment my key slides into the front door lock, the competition begins - it's an Olympic event for barking and howling - and though it's several minutes before I can even hear myself think, I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Hold onto the chaos long enough and you can tame it a little.  But only a little.