Let sleeping dogs lie?
By Andrew Smith

Me'n my mutt been workin' down in Custer State Park lately. Actually, I been workin' down in the Park; the mutt just tags along. If he was a human I'd raise cain with him for bein' so lazy and all, but dogs got a special dispensation from God about not workin'. At least my dogs do. They weren't put on this earth to work. They was put here to get in trouble.

It takes a dog no time to find trouble, and even less time to get in it. Whether it's skunks, porcupines, mad cows or a big patch of cockleburrs, my experience has been that if it's anywhere close by the dog will find it, roll in it, get sprayed by it and then bring it charging back at me before I've even got my boot laces properly tightened.

Take the other morning. I hadn't even worked the chill out of my bones yet, when my faithful mutt, Jin (which means "silver"), came running proudly through the trees towards me. Only Jin wasn't silver anymore. Instead he was the same dull shade of green as a pair of Army surplus socks I once owned.

With one quick glance I was able to ascertain that he'd rolled in what would have eventually turned into a buffalo chip, had he been able to resist its olfactory charm. But he hadn't, and he was so overjoyed at his good fortune in finding this sea-green treasure that he felt compelled to share it with me by trying to leap happily into my arms.

For this he was rewarded with the toe of my boot and a stern warning to keep his distance. But the warnings did nothing but make him want to apologize for whatever wrong he had committed, and so he tried even harder to find a way to climb in my lap. Presumably to lick my face. A vicious circle was thus created.

I finally made it up to him, and kept him off me, by offering him a doggy snack as a sort of truce. While he ate the snack I was able to give him a reassuring pat on the small portion of himself he hadn't slathered in wet buffalo dung. I find doggy snacks to be a great item of communication between man and dog. While a dog will listen with interest to almost anything you say, what he's really hoping is that you're going to give him a cheeseburger. This is dog psychology 101. All my jacket pockets are full of doggy snacks.

The rest of the day was spent in a sort of uneasy tension. From Jin's point of view things weren't going to be exactly right until he got the chance to jump in my arms and show me how much he loved me. He pretended to chase squirrels and dig after mice, but really he was watching me, looking for an opening. So I had to stay vigilant.

Luckily, the weather was warm, and by late afternoon most of the stuff had dried and fallen off him. Or at least he didn't look like The Dog FromThe Black Lagoon anymore. Unfortunately, he's terrified of the bed of a pickup, so he had to ride home up front with me. I kept a window down.

When we got home I put him out back, so he wouldn't smell up the house. But the boy went out back, and the dog came in. He trotted right over and jumped on the couch, for a nap. I had one boot off already, and I let fly with it from across the room. I missed him, but he sat up and remembered the rules about the couch. In our house the rule is clear: No dogs on the couch, unless there's no one else around.

And that goes for the chairs and the beds too. In our house the dogs really aren't allowed on anything, unless they think they can get away with it. We have rotating patrols, just to order mutts off the furniture.
He jumped off the couch and headed for the boy's room, to sleep on the bed. But I collared him on the way and put him back out again. Then the boy came back in, and the dog did too.

He headed for the couch again, but saw me first. By this time I had my other boot off and a clear shot at both the couch and the boy's bed. He stopped. Then the phone rang. It was a credit card company. I don't know what they wanted, because I hung up. But by the time I did the dog had gone downstairs to sleep on his own bed.

We have a big, overstuffed pillow thing for our dogs to sleep on. It's called a "dog bed," because if they called it a "big pillow thing your dog won't sleep on," no one would buy it. But our dogs won't sleep on it. They'd rather sleep on our bed.

I rushed downstairs then, and sure enough Jin was cuddling up for a nap on our bed. I hauled him upstairs and put him back out. Then the boy went out, and the dog came back in, and headed downstairs again. I put him back out, and the boy came in, and the dog did too. So I went downstairs and put him out again.
I was starting to get tired of this. All I wanted was to be able to get up in the morning and not smell like the wrong end of a buffalo. I wanted to keep the dog off the beds, the couches and the chairs, at least until he smelt a little better. It didn't seem like too much to ask.

So I went out in the shed and got a couple mouse traps, and set them on the bed. This time, when my faithful mutt jumped up there he'd get a surprise, by-God. And maybe he'd finally learn that he really isn't supposed to be up there. Then I went back upstairs and put on some coffee and got out my checkbook to pay some bills. And the boy went back out, but finally the dog didn't come in.

A while later my lovely wife came home. She had a load of groceries but no more money, and the baby was screaming, and her foot was sore 'cause she strained it somehow, and it wasn't a great day. So she went downstairs for a minute to take a nap. Hey, if she'd have invited me along I'd have told her the bed was booby trapped, but it plumb slipped my mind. I remembered it right after I heard her yell.

So me'n Jin both ended up in the dog house, sorta. I sat out on the back steps and just put my head in my hands. And he climbed in my lap, finally, and licked my face.