I’ve been taking a bit of a break from everything the last couple of nights, watching TV and being a couch potato.  Last night I was watching the first episode of the new Survivor when Ed flew off the couch (he’s a couch potato, too) and plowed through the front screen door – it doesn’t latch very well.

I flew off the couch as well because the sound of his “voice” was honestly like that of a man.  I was preparing to slam the door shut and let Ed decide what to do with the burglar.  However, by the time I got there I realized it was a raccoon and Ed had him cornered.  Not pretty.

Ed’s a good dog.  But when he gets on the scent of a wild animal he is insane.  I heard the raccoon yell at him and saw Ed tumble out of the bushes, which gave the raccoon just enough time to fly into a tree.  Yes, this was all happening so fast, we were all flying around.

Then Ed flew up the hill.  Our front hill has no fence and he could run forever.  Which I thought he was going to do.  He absolutely refused to come when I called, shook his treat box, or clanged his metal food bin.  Of course his tags had come off recently and I hadn’t had time to return them to his collar.  This alone had me in a panic  – I could see me not sleeping for the next three weeks wondering whatever happened to him and how far he had gotten.

I tried to fly up the hill.  Impossible -it’s too steep and dangerous even in the daytime.  I went into the back yard and flew up the stairs (many of which are broken, but as Mom would say “I was careful.”)  I unlatched the wooden gate at the top of the stairs.  I can hear Ed in the dark, running around but he still would not come.

I finally gave up and called Al in SoCal for some moral support and pretty much just thought “fuck it I’m too old for this.” Then I went back to the front yard and sat down. I heard the raccoon make its escape from the tree while Ed was still running around like the idiot he is higher on up the hill.  I heard Ed come a little closer and then I decided to get his metal food bowl and put food in it.  I don’t know whether he was tired or the doggie adrenaline had burned itself out or whether it really is the magic bullet.  He came right away.

A little scratch on his eye, his ear and somewhere under his chin was all he had to show for it.  I put a little hydrogen peroxide on it to clean it up and check it out.  He would survive, lucky dude.  I spent the next 20 minutes pulling burrs off his coat – thankfully he’s short haired so it wasn’t so bad.

The best part of this is that I went upstairs to look for Twister the Cat’s fur brush to help the process and I found her looking out the upstairs window, as if she had watched the whole ordeal like a movie.  She turned her head and gave me that cat look that only cats can give that says”My God, that dog is SOOOOO STUPID.”

Yep.