They look like cute and innocent puppies, but did you know they had made a pact with Pandora to unleash chaos upon my household unawares?
So here is what happened. Sometime during the afternoon, the sun was shining, birds were singing, trees were beginning to bud and new grass was trying to grow on the hill where the puppies play. Demon was trying to get said puppies to play with him, when the scent of chaos spawns on him in the form of a gopher. Now anyone who has huskies will know what happened next.
Demon, Yukon and Freya burst into a frenzy of excavation. All gophers must be eradicated! They manage to create an impressive crater under the back fence that any passing meteorite would have been proud of. Not sure if they found the gopher, but here's what happened next. Being such a nice lovely spring day, all the puppies decided it was a great day for an outing. All but three of them (which means 5 of the 8 that are left) went to explore the wide world outside the dog yard. Three pups stayed nearby, playing in the sun, eating the new grass, chasing gophers and squirrels in the pasture by the creek.
Now another circumstance needs to be explained. This particular day was my son's 21st birthday, so naturally he got legally drunk on two shots of rum, and was playing with his computer. My husband was, well... indisposed if you catch my meaning. I was working, and had to work late (again). By the time my husband was done, he noticed a puppy outside the fence, and the chase begins. Our drunk son goes out back in the dog yard, plugs the holes while Jim rounds up three puppies and brings them back in to the house. Much confusion ensues as puppies are counted and re-counted and somehow both my husband and my drunk son think that 6 puppies means that one is missing. Yeah I know, eight puppies, six in the house, and I get a panicked call saying that Xena must have drowned because Moon was running up and down the bank of the creek barking. No one at this point is worried about the fact that only SIX of eight puppies are accounted for, as I have been told that only Xena is missing.
Doing my best not to be annoyed at my husband's lack of faith in puppy survival instincts, I tell him to go along the bank of the creek downstream and check for Xena. If she did jump in the water, that is where she would be. (Our land stretches a good ways down the creek) So immediately James, our drunk son, tells my husband to go down to the bridge and look. Well, the bridge is UPSTREAM from our house and of course, Xena is not there. Meanwhile I'm working on patching our mainframe and can't drop what I'm doing and drive home to find puppies, but someone who doesn't panic and that wasn't innebriated was definitely needed.
My husband then thinks it is a good idea to consult the neighbor kids. They tell him they've seen a black and white puppy up the hill by the chicken yard. He jumps in the car and drives up and down the road looking for Xena. Meanwhile James has decided that he should go back to playing with his computer and I finally get a hold of him. I ask him carefully to explain what happened, and finally learn from him that there are only six puppies in the house. Dumbfounded I have him name off the puppies: Buck, Kirby, Silver, Princess, Moon and Cat. At this point I admit I was a bit distraught that no one noticed that Ace too was missing. I pointed this fact out to James, and honestly knowing that two puppies were missing made me feel a bit better. Two puppies were by far easier to find than one, and unlikely to have fallen in the creek together.
This meant that Ace and Xena had decided to take a puppy holiday together. I asked James where Jim had searched and to my utter annoyance was told by the bridge instead of downstream as I had suggested. Meanwhile, true to my prediction, both Ace and Xena had found something suitably dead, rotting and wonderful to roll in downstream. Jim finally grabs up two collars and leashes, the treat jar and heads downstream along the creek bank (this is after two hours of panic...) shaking the treat jar and calling to Ace and Xena. Ace pops her head up over the bank to see if whatever treats Jim had were better than dead rotted something. Nope, not any better, so she goes back down the bank. Jim had, however, spotted her, and came level with where they were happily gnawing on the dead rotted thing.
Now, Jim is a big and rather out of shape man. He has already worn himself out running up and down the creek, up and down the road, and worried himself half to death. He slips the collar and leash on Ace, and tries to get one on Xena. Xena will have none of it, and in the confusion, he drops the treat jar. Ace sees her opportunity, and dives into the treat jar. Now, for anyone who has seen the incident with Elvis, knows what happened next. Yup, Ace's head was then stuck in the treat jar, and she panicked, jumping around and wrapping the leash around Jim. This caused Jim to let go of Xena and he panicked that Ace was hyperventilating and finally slumped into a stupor as he is running back to the house screaming for our drunk son who is busy listening to music and playing with his computer with his window and door shut. I can only imagine what the neighbors were thinking at this point. A rotund guy running through the woods with what looks like a dead puppy with its head stuck in a jar, screaming at the top of his lungs and crying.
James finally hears him, comes running out and realizes that Ace is not dead, but in that "I give up" phase of being in trouble and not being able to do anything about it. James cuts the jar from around Ace and she revives instantly and proceeds to run and play normally in the dog yard. Jim has James run back and get Xena who has gone back to gnawing on dead rotted things on the bank of the creek complete with leash and collar still attached. Meanwhile I'm driving home after completing the maintenance and trying not to attract the attention of any state troopers. Jim calls me on my cell and tells me that he has both puppies and that I can slow down. Then he tells me to standby to call 911 because he thinks he might be having a heart attack. Of course this does not slow me down, and I tell him to stay with me on the phone which he has already hung up.
So, I arrive at the house about 10 minutes later, greeted by said wayward puppies who obviously think that nothing what-so-ever had been wrong. Jim is hyperventilating in the kitchen from being stressed and out of shape. Thank goodness it was a case of simple hyperventilating. James is busy trying to tell me the whole story which wasn't very funny at the time, but now... well, judge for yourself.
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