Dog rescue II

Now before I tell you this story, I need to relay some facts that will aid understanding. First, Ranger is a very, very needy dog; you leave him for a couple of hours and he’ll greet you on your return like a whirling Dervish; secondly, the doors in our house all have closers and Ranger is very partial to walking through (literally) a door in search of me and then not being able to get out again; and thirdly, our new withdrawing room has a lovely rug fresh out of the polythene. So onto last night....

The trouble began with a disjointed going to bed – I went up, with A promising to follow behind shortly. That resulted in me only getting four of the five dogs to come up with me, Miffy choosing to stay in her bed under the table. When A finally pitched up an hour later, he announced that he couldn’t get Miffy to move, so he’d left her downstairs. I then took the executive decision of leaving the bedroom door open in case she decided to wander up later, calculating that the dogs were not likely to do any nocturnal wanderings (too snoozy). That’s all fine and we drop off to sleep. I end up in a Hound of the Baskervilles dream, with this horrible howling and desperate barking filling my unconsciousness. Only it wasn’t, my unconsciousness I mean. Because I was now awake and could still hear it. Immediately thinking that something had happened to Miffy – even though it didn’t sound anything like her, I stumbled out of bed, only to clock Susie on the landing. Oh my god, what had she done? Had she beaten Miffy up again and was she now sleeping the sleep of the righteous alpha female who shall brook the existence of no other girlie dog? Eventually descending to the hall, I’m relieved to see my little girl dart out from the living room, unmarked and far too bouncy for 3.30am. More to the point, she’s not making a squeak.

Realisation dawned. Quickly I pushed open the door of the withdrawing room and out of the darkness shot this giant golden ball of fuzz wailing and woofing and generally having a monster-sized canine panic attack. Yes, Ranger had gone exploring in the middle of the night and got himself locked in the room, in the pitch dark. Heaven knows how long he’d been trapped there, all I know is that it was long enough for him to leave two presents on the rug. I don’t think I have ever seen a dog so stressed – the anxiety poured from every paw and pore. When I at last got him upstairs, he even took the unprecedented step of jumping up into bed with me (that’s a morning treat only), inadvertently using Susie as a trampoline and getting a big doggie ‘effoff’ for his troubles. Lying next to me, he went about vigorously licking his privates and then moved onto my face, which I wouldn’t have appreciated at any time, let alone the wee small hours of the morning. He eventually went back to his own bed and the panting slowly subsided before he drifted off. Thankfully, dogs live totally in the moment so come 7.30am, he was off down the stairs and into someone’s leftover dinner before you could say ‘traumatised greyhound – not’.

I related the story to A over a cup of in bed tea where he was highly sympathetic and proceeded to give pooch lots of fuss, laughing gently as the story unfolded. I then told him that Ranger had crapped and pissed the new rug, upon which he had a total sense of humour failure (he likes to keep things ‘nice’, which is difficult living with the disaster area that is his wife, let alone five dogs). I promised him there was no stain, only a drying wet patch. With a granite face and a foot up Ranger's bum, he assured me that he wouldn’t be lying down on it anytime soon...