Wednesday, April 11, 2012

lessons from the pokey warden - lesson 1: never show the inmate your escape route..


A happy skippy little boy met me in the middle of the hallway upstairs, a sure sign that somepuppy has been keeping tabs on his mom and dad while he's been in the pokey.  Watching and learning with one eye open all while he was pretending to sleep under cover of warm blankies, woozy and sluggish from muscle relaxers and intellectual under stimulation.

"baby dog!", I did declare to the happy-to-be-free dogggie before me. "How did you get out?"

Baxter's tail wagged proudly as I kneeled down to scoop him up and put him back in the pokey that I had only moments earlier set up in his dad's office so I could get dressed and buy a few goodies to pimp out tiny chumley's zippy trailer.

Oh there it is, I realized when I put the little kielbasa back down and he started again in the direction of his path to the promised land where freedom reigns and walkies happen every day.  The ex-pen walls I had set up amidst all the boxes that were awaiting a trip to the thrift store had unintentionally created a mini funhouse maze, a perfect  lowrider pathway for little pent up doxies anxious to stretch their legs and roam free again.

This was, actually, mostly my fault. Baxter's new found maze management skills, that is. For days now we have been able to get by with sloppily placed walls and giant gaps and haven't had to worry at all about the little kielbasa actually busting out.  The trick, I knew, was in keeping things seemingly precarious enough so that Baxter wouldn't even try to nudge at things, as strong as his skitter instinct is.  But all the lifting in and out of the pokey has taken a bit of a toll on me ergonomically speaking, and so these past few days I've been moving parts of the gate like a fence so I could get in and out more easily, and sometimes yes, encouraging him to take a step or two down the maze-like path of freedom so that I could more easily pick him up and take him where he needed to go.  Little did I know how this would sharpen somepuppy's stealthy navigational skills.

So now the walls are much better secured for my little pokey break puppy.  No gaps, no connections to make hidden pathways to the promised land.  But the whole experience makes me wonder, what else has he learned while watching me through the golden wires of his pokey prison walls?

pssst - can u keep a secret?  don't tell mom but i know where she keeps the snackies by her desk and i know where mister tiger goes to sleep when we are not playing with him!!










6 comments:

Alicia said...

HAHAHA! You humans think that you are soooo smart!! Yeah, we're wachin' you, AND we are fluent in every language too, so there!

I'll go back to pretending to sleep now....
Thank you Baxter, for giving that tiny demonstration of our superior minds to your human landlord. Well done!

Oskar

Anonymous said...

omg
this doggy is a genius!
im starting to believe,that he is typing this blog of his own!
hope,he will be ble to jump and play again,soon.
anni,the foxbrothermomma

kalyxcorn said...

hee hee oskar yeah u know how to do it! :)

hee hee hello anni! :)

Lovable Lily said...

The Amazing Baxter is up to his tricks once again. Is your middle name Houdini?

Hugs,
Lily Belle

Kerri said...

B, when your mom is online shopping, ask her to get you a rock pick and a poster of Rita Hayworth.

HH and The Boys said...

Congrats on getting out... so sad you got found out and reinstated into the pokey.

Hope you have a good day.

pawhugs, Max