pat loughery

To a country boy(*), there’s not much more fun than taking the dog up to the lake, wandering around for a while at the edge of the water, throwing sticks for retrieval, getting wet-shook upon, and watching the fishermen in their pontoon boats get skunked(**).

So that’s what Hope and I did last night.  Being a Friday evening, with wife and kids out of town, it seemed a good thing to do.  It was.  Our year-old lab puppy jumped into our ’66 Ford pickup, front seat since she’s dry, and we lumbered a few miles away, up the winding hill to Rattlesnake Lake.

It was the first time Hope and I have taken this trip together.  She’s only a year old, and the truck was down for repair last fall when she was big enough.  She enjoyed the front seat ride even though the window doesn’t roll down so she couldn’t stick her head out like a proper dog should.

She enjoyed hopping out of the truck, springing to life the way a lab does and snorting her way down to the water. She especially enjoyed taunting the other dog there who was tied up to a tree, and then she enjoyed chasing the mallards who were just trying to have a quiet Friday evening alone at the beach before that damned retriever showed up.  She even enjoyed that every time she sprinted toward those ducks, they flitted away, as if they were just that much smarter than her.

She most enjoyed when the other yearling pup, a German Shepherd Dog suitably named Bandit, joined into the retrieval fun by wading out to knee high and then trying to bandit away Hope’s well earned waterlogged stick.  The two dogs repeated this ballet a dozen times.  Mostly Bandit won, so I had to find a new stick to throw while the two yearlings sprinted around and misjudged corners and nearly took out the other human around before swerving off at the last moment.  Good thing they missed, they nearly spilled the lady’s energy drink.

In time, Bandit’s care provider had to move along, so Hope and I were left alone for a few more throws.  We quit before she was tired enough to try to hide her stick from me before I could throw it again.

So we headed back to the truck, Hope on a leash because she’s not trained for much besides responding to ‘treat’ and other people at the lake may not appreciate a wet lab properly.  She steadfastly refused to jump into the bed of the truck, which is where a wet lab belongs, as opposed to the front of a truck, which is where a dry lab belongs.  I hoisted her aboard and jumped into the cab myself for I am not a wet lab.

As we began to wind down the hill toward home, Hope had two distinct responses.

Her first came as she was convinced that I had forgotten her in the bed of the truck.  She commenced barking and pawing at the back window of the truck, hoping to catch my attention.  This she accomplished, for I took a cameraphone picture or two through the back window while trying to keep a truck older than I with no power steering and questionable suspension centered in my lane.  She did not find this funny.

Second, defeated in the first plan, she settled in to ride down the hill, with all four legs on the wheel well so she had the best position she could manage in the circumstances.

Those knowledgeable about dogs riding in truck beds may be aware of a situation developing at this point in the brief tale.  A dog with all four legs on the wheel well is not properly balanced for winding roads in a poorly suspended truck bed.  Hope is a puppy and she has not yet learned this.  I jerked the truck to the left a couple of times to knock her into the bottom of the bed to catch her attention, but since she is a girl dog she knows better than me and she returned to her throne.

On the first tight right turn, she lost her balance.  Two feet – the outermost two, it should be noted – landed on the top of the truck bed, and scrittered to keep themselves inboard.  Barely.  She was not as concerned as an older and wiser lab would be, though, for she stayed put with her ample belly and chest on the edge of the bed and the inboard legs keeping her there.

Being in a tight right hand turn, I could not nudge her inward by the steering wheel.  One or two bumps disturbed her position, and she flurried about, but somehow she maintained her position.

On the next left turn, I steered extra hard and bumped her into the bed again.  She barked at me in displeasure.

But, barking notwithstanding, she then took her proper place with rear feet on the floor of the truck bed, and front feet on the wheel well.

Just as a wet lab should.