The Phone Call

I guess it was only a matter of time.  Scout has figured out just about everything else around here and how it works.  Yesterday he made a phone call.

I don’t know who he meant to call, or what he was calling about.  Possibly it was supposed to be a call to someone to come and take all these puppies away.  Or it might have been an inquiry about the weather and when it’s going to get cool again.  His fur coat is not suitable for 98 degree weather.  But he called my friend Alice.

I was in the kitchen making supper when I heard a little thump.  “What are you doing, Scout?”  I called.  It’s always Scout, any time there is a thump anywhere in the house.  Then I heard a noise like a phone ringing from the caller’s side.  Before I could put two and two together, I heard Alice’s voice.  “Hello?” she was saying.  “Hello?”  I rushed into the living room where Scout was lying on the rug staring at the phone in amazement.  He had not only hit redial, but he had also turned on the speaker, all the better to hear whoever he meant to call.  Who knows what he would have said if I had not arrived to pick up the phone?

“It was Scout,” I said, when I picked up the phone.  “What do you mean?” Alice asked.  “Scout got the phone and called you,” I said.  She thought it was pretty funny.  Thank goodness it was someone who knew me and knew Scout.  I can only imagine if it had been some stranger who answered a call from my number and heard panting and hard breathing on the other end.  I might have to move away from here, and I can’t face packing up all the stuff in this house.

I had made him come inside with me because the puppies were outside with Sophie.  Scout likes the puppies, but he is not entirely convinced that, now that they are running around making noises, they are not some new type of squeaky toy for him to play with.  He would not deliberately try to hurt them, but he does have a tendency to pull the stuffing out of cuddly things and I’m not taking any chances.  The phone was not supposed to be on the table – I had already lost a TV remote to his busy mouth last week and had resolved to keep all such things in the drawer.   In fact, we have pretty much cleared everything off all the flat surfaces of my living room until Scout outgrows his puppy fun. 

The puppies still sleep inside, but they spend nice days (if you can call upper 90’s “nice”) out in a pen in the front yard.  I ordered the pen off Amazon when I came home from lunch and one of the puppies met me at the front door.  I really thought the wading pool would hold them a little longer than 3 weeks.  Amazingly enough, the pen was delivered within two days and was just as easy to put up as described.  I think it will hold puppies until they leave for new homes.  The pen is not popular with the puppies – they like having the entire big yard to roam in, but my nerves and Sophie’s nerves are calmer when they are enclosed in a more confined space. They have already found all the flower beds, learned to come up the steps, and one quickly learned to crawl up into a concrete planter amongst the flowers.  They are very athletic puppies, smart and adventurous. 

If Scout was trying to find new homes for the puppies, it could be that Sophie put him up to it.  She is beginning to have that long suffering expression that says, “How much longer are these going to be with me?”  If he had bothered to ask me, I could have told him Alice would not buy a puppy.