Life can get complicated when you’re the neighborhood dog

Ghost technically isn’t my dog. On weekends like this, he isn’t my dog at all.

Yesterday morning the boys and I took a Jeep ride to Landlady’s house to say hi. As soon as Ghost saw her puppy Dharma he wanted out of the vehicle, right frickin’ now, and no nonsensical suggestions of mine to the contrary were ever even briefly in consideration. Okay, Landlady is Mom and always will be. Makes sense. I didn’t argue.

In the early afternoon I went to D&L’s place and learned that Ghost was no longer at Landlady’s place. L said as how she’d seen him over at S&L’s, our weekender neighbors. “He sure is a happy, friendly little guy,” she gushed.

He is? Most days he’s a grumpy middle-aged dog who lives to chase trespassers off his lawn. When he goes off to stay with neighbors, suddenly he’s a ‘happy, friendly little guy?’ Sheesh.

Landlady is in training for some sort of run & gun shoot, and I was sighting in this newly-scoped AK, so there was quite a bit of gunfire in the wash between S&L’s and the Lair yesterday afternoon. That’s pretty much guaranteed to keep the wash a Ghost-free zone, because he hates gunfire the more the older he gets. Later I went to Landlady’s to tend her chickens, and met S in a different part of the wash with a Bobcat. They’re entering a new phase of construction on his place. He came down with the Bobcat for some sand and managed to high-center it on a big rock. I’m much wiser with other peoples’ calamities than my own: I suggested he pick up the front of the ‘cat with the bucket while we stuff rocks under the wheels, and that worked great. But I digress: I asked about Ghost – you remember Ghost? My dog? – and he said yeah, he’s up there at their place supervising, getting spoiled by L, and generally acting like he thinks he’s the Sultan of Brunei.

So I didn’t figure to see him last night, and I was right. In fact, if the weekend went its usual way I’d see him only when S&L dropped him off on their way out of the desert. That would happen sometime just before noon. But just a little after six this morning, I heard him whining on the stairs. I opened the door, he walked in and headed right for the water bowl, then he wanted a nap in the kneehole of the desk next to Uncle Joel.

Just a little before six this morning, somebody (I think probably Landlady again) was firing something apocalyptic-sounding in the wash. I don’t suppose that could have anything to do with Ghost’s sudden attack of homesickness.

Naw. I’ll just go ahead and say he was overwhelmed with canine loyalty. Yeah. That’s the ticket.