Po Po's at 2:00am

Is this the face of innocence? I think not. Those beady little eyes, the blank stare, all a cover for the mayhem which lies beneath. I hate to confess to all the atrocities that this dog has committed in our house on the grounds that my friends may no longer be my friends and my family will never let us visit them again.
But for your pleasure...
He has several nicknames in our house. Stupid, Moron, Idiot, Whizzer. There are others. Mostly it is whatever comes flying out of your mouth when you find poop in your closet. Or the living room. Or the family room, guest room, bathroom, come to think of it, there isn't a room he hasn't christened with his waste. Including Josh's bed. Poor Josh.
And many of my friends will remember a certain diarrhea incident where he walked into the middle of the book club circle and held nothing back. He did the same in my bathroom, dining room, hallway...you get the idea.

Did I mention urine? Because everyone knows that where there's smoke there's fire. My carpet cleaner has paid for itself many times over. If you catch him in the act and yell at him, you will be sorry because he will run off, finishing the deed in a long, zig-zagging pattern across the room.
Needless to say, I am longing to replace my carpet.

He also cries. Whimpers like a hound dog at all hours of the night, sometimes while standing on my pillow. Sometimes it's because he wants to go out. You can race downstairs to let him out, thinking you made it in time, but when you turn around there may be that tell-tale zig-zag. Or he may insult you by not going out at all.

He escapes. A pool installer brought him to us from the alley behind the house. The neighbor brought him to us from his yard. Another neighbor brought him to us from his porch. In other words, if you don't let him back into his litter box quickly enough, he finds a way to make your life more difficult and embarrassing.

I'm sure you're getting the idea. Tod is ready to take him on that special drive.

So the other night Jack was outside. He eventually scratched on the door to be let in. The thing with my medication is that when I take everything together at night, I am dead to the world pretty quickly. I'm talking 4X dosage of NyQuil out of it. So I thought I let him in. But it turns out that I didn't. It got quiet outside not because I had let him in but he let himself out. Out of the yard.

I walked down the alley at one in the morning, up and down the street, calling his name and making the neighbor's dogs go nuts.
After a while we decided to call it quits for the night, knowing a neighbor would probably bring him around in the morning.

2:00am- tap tap tap
I answer the door. As my friend Anna would say. "It's the Po Po's!"
"Ma'am, does this dog belong to you?"

(Why no, I'm pretty sure he could be your problem now.)
"You bad dog! How did you get out?" (I'm only pretending I like you right now for the sake of this nice policeman who dirtied his uniform on this rainy night to bring your sorry rear back to us. And when he goes back to his car I'm going to scream at you.)

"I found him up there at the intersection by that Mormon church." (that MORMON church, you should thank me because I rescued him from the very gates of culthood itself!)"He was just sitting there in the middle of the intersection. I'm surprised he didn't get run over." (Ma'am, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I think your dog's done gone retarded.)

"Wow! What were you doing there? I looked all over for you! He gets out sometimes but we can't find the spot where he does it"

"I had a Beagle that got out all the time. Chewed through the fence. Well, he was just sitting there in that intersection, you know, right by that Mormon church, he was just sitting there in the road and when I walked up to him he just looked at me like I was the one who was crazy" (Again, I'm reminding you that he was WAY to close to that MORMON church for comfort. Also, again, I'm pretty sure your dog is retarded.)

"Thank you so much for bringing him home. The kids will be so relieved that he made it back." (Really, only the kids will be glad he made it back. Tod was thinking of cutting off the collar and setting him out. And your dog chewed through the fence? That's a new one...)

"You're welcome ma'am. Glad I could help. I am surprised he didn't get run over out there." (He's lucky I got to him before a car or those MORMONS.)

Door closes, and let the scolding begin.
But after the dog makes a bed on my pillow, I am thinking that it is a small blessing that the only reason the police have ever been to the house is to bring the dog home. Dumb dog that he is. And Tod's response when I got back in?
"You didn't try to get him to take him home with him?"