The Inadvertent Detainment of (Formerly Known as Puppy) Jack Thevictorian

Last Friday night, as I was kicked back in my OPC (Old People Chair) watching a DVR of Live PD around 1:00 a.m., I heard howling. It was kind of eerie. My dogs are not howlers. They are yappers. They yap all the livelong night, in various locations, my least favorite being on the back porch right outside the french doors of the master bedroom.

I wasn't too concerned with the howling. It was only one dog, and I recognized that voice as Jack. It WAS around the time of the Wolf Moon. So I figured maybe Jack was getting in touch with his "wolf spirit," even though we don't feed him Blue Buffalo brand dog food, nor allow him to get such an idea by watching the commercial.

Because you never know exactly what's going on when you hear a mournful howl like that, I hoped that nothing was wrong with my Sweet, Sweet Juno. She usually is Jack's barker-in-crime. She's getting up in years now, but still has not reached double digits. Besides, I'd seen her earlier in the day, and she was fine.

The next morning I was kicked back in the La-Z-Boy ("Do you detect a pattern here?" my Christmas present the Garmin Shaming Bracelet asks) checking my blogs on laptop Shiba, when Hick tromped in and plopped onto the long couch to keep me company.

"Jack spent the night in the garage. I opened up the door and he run out. I guess he went through the cat door. Or else I accidentally closed him in there last night when I came home from the auction."

"You have to let him out! He runs in there looking for the cat. The one that growls at him. Dusty. The gray one." Hick doesn't know the names of the cats, even though we've had them for longer than we've had Juno. He also messes up their pronouns.

"Huh. I guess I could of closed him in."

"He gets distracted looking up in the rafters over at the corner of the Acadia. Where they climb up the ladders you have hanging on the wall. Sometimes you have to yell, 'JACK!' and get his attention, and he'll run out the people door with you. He can't fit through the pet door. He would have been going in there all along to torment the cat."

"He's out now."

Now don't go feeling sorry for Jack. He's a DOG'S dog! Rough-and-tumble. Nothing namby-pamby about our Jack. He's an outside dog, and he's fine. Even though I try to persuade Hick to let the dogs in during frigid weather, he says no. And reasons that they wouldn't come in anyway.

Hick recently installed a wood stove in his new Storage Container Garage. He could get a fire going, and put them in there (the garage, not the fire!) for safekeeping overnight. Hick would have no objections to that scenario, but he says the dogs won't go in unless he leaves the big garage door open. That he calls them and tries to get them inside with him, but they lay around outside and wait for him. Unless that big door is open. Then they run in and out as they please. They won't enter through the people door.

He CAN get them in the BARn, which has a furnace, kept around 50 degrees, I think, during the winter. Juno would be fine. Hick has accidentally locked Juno in the BARn about a dozen times. But Jack can't stay overnight in the BARn. The BARn is not Jack-proofed. He would eat something that could be deadly to him, I'm sure. He's a mouthy little thing, always chewing and nipping and sampling stuff. Just ask Genius's gift wallet, made of Bison leather, monogrammed, with RFID blocker, from Sharper Image, last Christmas. Or the big package that had the corner of the box chewed off when it fell from the Gator to the driveway.

No, Jack doesn't need to be shut up in the garage overnight. It's not heated, not attached to the house, has a concrete floor, and would make ME howl if I had to sleep in there. Jack is better off having the run of the place, to sleep in the yucca plant out front, or in a nest he's made in the square hay bales stacked for the goat and mini pony, or in the shed where Billy and Barry spend their nights, or in the chicken house. Those are his choices, since Hick moved the Toronado, under which Jack had dug a hole in the gravel, and he refuses to sleep in one of the two dog houses at the end of the porch, out of the wind, filled with cedar shavings. Like I said. Jack is a DOG'S dog! No house for him!

Anyhoo...our Jack was released from the garage. Not necessarily for good behavior, but on Hick's recognizance that he had indeed most likely slammed that people door in Jack's face as he was trying to exit the garage with him at 10:30 last Friday night, after the auction.

I don't think Jack bears him any ill will. Though he CAN look a little accusatory at times.