Cardboard Prison

I've always been a busy dog---some might say a naughty dog---until this last year when my heart started acting up. I'm 15 ½ years old but I still feel like a puppy inside. I still want to pull toilet paper through the house but when I walk from the kitchen to the bathroom I have to stop and rest half way. Man, that's a long way to go just to cause a little trouble. So, I've been known to pee on the carpeting instead. That seems to do the trick to get my mom running around like a crazy creature looking for rags and a big red spray can that she uses to re-mark the spot that I just did. Why does she do that? I mark. She marks. I mark again. I may be old but I'm still alpha leader in our pack and I can win any pissing contest. Well, almost any. My territory is three steps down off the deck and sometimes I have trouble in our Michigan winters getting down there and... well, accidents happen.

Yesterday my mom spent a long time lining a huge cardboard box with black plastic. I didn't know what she was making but I had an awful feeling it had something to do with me. At bedtime I found out she did have something sneaky up her sleeve. Mom closed me in the laundry room with the ugly black box blocking the door to the rest of the house. I think she thought I was going to pee in it but I fooled her. I waited until morning, until my dad moved the box, and then I peed on the Linoleum in the kitchen.

I like sleeping in the laundry room but I hate being barred from going into the rest of the house at night. I can't look out the dining room door to see the rabbits eating bird seed at midnight. The snow banks are so high next to the deck that they can run right up them to get to seed my mom throws out for the birds. I think one of night raiders is the rabbit I found hidden in the flowers last summer when it was still a tiny baby. ©