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Ahhhh. Sorry old man, but outside is out of the question.
He labored to the back door and sat, looking over his shoulder at me.
I said no. It is one degree. I am in my jammies and you want to go wander about the ranch. Not a chance.
We did not go out.
However, Cooper and Conley went out, albeit not for long. They may just be dogs and covered with fur or hair but stupid they are not.
How do I know they want in?
Cooper stands back a bit from the door and gives a sharp bark. Then he waits. After about 30 seconds, he will repeat the bark. But if there is no response, the wait-time becomes shorter, say 15 seconds. Then ten. Then a note of real impatience creeps in.
"Woman! Open the door!"
He learned this from Zelda. Mitchell would never have commanded me in this tone. And sure enough, I hustle over and open the door.
Conley is less circumspect in letting me know that he wants back into the house. Cooper and Conley are the two who will come in regardless of what the others are doing, in other words, independently. Nigel and Llewis used to wait for each other, now Llewis waits for everyone. Sometimes Llewis is so slow that Cooper asks to go back out and look for him. Seriously. He will go back out and stand at the turn in the sidewalk and look first one way and then the other, and if he doesn't see him gimping towards the house he will go out into the yard and bark at him. "Get in here! God you're slow!"
Conley leaves no room for indecision. He attacks the door. The door used to have a lovely screen on the bottom, but no more. It now hangs in dismal tatters. There are paw prints and mud all over the door for Conley rears up and SLAMS his front feet against the door, barking, over and over and when I appear to open the door he backs up, still standing on two legs, and then falls to all fours and rushes in the door, stopping immediately to see if I have treats (O when do I not?)
Llewis is the original Pokey Little Puppy. Possibly because of his leg he just almost never rushes. Once in awhile he will run. If I step out holding the dog bowls, he will run. If DadPerson goes out and has not been home, Llewis runs. When he does the Basset 475 (he cannot quite manage the Basset 500) he runs, and when he is trying to catch and kill Conley, he runs.
Otherwise he cannot be bothered. I hear him coming from around the corner: pad pad swish drag. Pad pad swish drag. It's like the sound track from The Night of the Living Dead. And here he comes, tail wagging slowly, eyes quizzical: "Yes? You called?" (ten minutes ago.) "There was a scent over by the shed, so sorry." But he isn't sorry, not at all. He stops half in and half out so even when it is 1 and there is a blizzard I cannot close the door, and he looks at me kind of sadly: "Is there a treat for this, or shall I stay here?"
All but Nigel, who used to jostle with Conley to be the first inside. Now he is the first for everything. Treats, belly rubs, tickles, walks and unsolicited hugs. He looks at Conley triumphantly from his place high on my bed. I see it all in his eyes:
"Ha you little Thug. Nyah Nyah."
And Conley does the only thing he can to drive Nigel mad: he walks over and goes in Nigel's pen, rearranges all the blankets it took Nigel ten minutes to get Just Right, and goes to sleep.
