The Dog Door

 

I recently had to replace my storm door.  I decided while I was at it to go an extra step and get one with a dog door built it.  There are advantages to this door – it saves me a lot of getting up and down to let dogs in and out.  But there are disadvantages.  This morning I looked out and saw Scout and Carli playing with their stuffed monkey, a toy that is supposed to be an indoor toy.  That was just the beginning.

It has been a goal of Sophie and Scout ever since they came to live here to escape outside with shoes.  Thankfully, I have learned my lesson about keeping good shoes out of reach, but the old, already tattered shoes I let them play with are now scattered around the yard.  Tim, who rents most of my farm, told me that he found a tennis shoe over in one of the cattle fields last week.  He said he didn’t bother calling or bringing it home because it was way beyond repair.  One shoe is resting on the sidewalk right now as I look out the window.  And this morning, I found a dress in the yard.  It was not a good dress; it was one destined for the rag box even before its trip to the yard.  I’m not sure where they got it, but they can be pretty resourceful when they see something they think would make a good toy.

All the dogs caught on quickly to the idea of going in and out on their own.  Scout was the first one through, christening the new door before the handyman got his tools put up.  Carli was next, right behind him with only a little hesitation when the flap slapped her in the face.  Bear followed.  My neighbor’s dog, Judge, who thinks she lives here too, caught on next.  Sophie – well, let’s just say that Sophie prefers the old way of waiting for someone to open the regular door for her highness.  I think she objects to being slapped on the nose when it swings back.  Sometimes she will go out with the other dogs if she is quick enough not to have to push it open on her own.  The only other problem has been a few instances where two dogs tried to go through at the same time and got a little stuck.

Outside my front yard fence is a little rise that my neighbor Clay calls “the grassy knoll.”  It is a favorite lookout point for all the dogs and they spend a lot of their days there.  I guess you could say it’s their playground, and they have been busy collecting entertaining items.  I walked out there the other day and found multiple large bones, scavenged from the woods and pastures, an inner tube, towels and other cloth of unknown origin, several pieces of rope, plastic bottles, large sticks, old shoes, and a torn-up book they stole from the recycle box.  I don’t know what people think when they drive up to the house.   I will eventually get out there and pick it all up so they can start another collection.  The good thing is, if I’m missing something from the house, I know where to start looking.

The warnings I got from my friends about the dog door involved what might come in the door.  So far, nothing strange has wandered in and the dogs don’t seem to be eager to bring their treasures inside.  They seem to think it’s a toy in and of itself, going in and out and repeating the process several times.  I have to learn to be quicker about closing the inner door when I want them inside.  Sophie still thinks it’s a trick and that she just might disappear between worlds if she uses it.  And I think Scout is using it to play tricks on the other dogs.  Just this morning Bear and Carli were enjoying a nap by the fire when Scout suddenly set up a volley of barks.  Immediately, the two dogs jumped up and burst through the dog door to join him in repelling whatever invaders might be imminent.  There was absolutely nothing that I could see going on and nothing that they could find when they got outside.  They looked around for a couple of minutes, looked at Scout, who had resumed his resting place on the porch, and came back inside.  I can only imagine what they were thinking.

Speaking of Scout, he is the only dog I’ve ever had that will just lie out in the rain, perfectly happy.  Sophie refuses to even go out when it’s raining and the others take refuge on the porch.  But I will look out and there is Scout, in the middle of yard during a rainstorm, just lying there.  I guess it is his heavy coat – the rain probably never gets down to his skin.  Then when he does come in, he is a mess.  And I have noticed that a dog loves his person more when he is wet and muddy than at any other time.  The amount of affection seems to increase with the amount of water and dirt, multiplied by the cleanliness and color of the clothes the person is wearing.  I tell him he is nasty and wet, and he just grins at me and rubs his head on my leg that much harder.  That’s why I never buy white clothes.  Just ask Anne, my friend who wore white pants to my house during a rainstorm for a visit with Sophie’s puppies.  It did not end well for the pants, although she tells me she was able to eventually get them clean!