I think I may have mentioned previously that our little dog is easily spooked. Well, that’s putting it mildly. If the wind is blowing more than 10 mph, she will not go outside unless coerced, for fear that a rogue leaf will blow her direction, causing untold devastation.
Just today at lunch, I witnessed another display of her amazing lack of bravery. We had received a package via UPS and the contents were cushioned by the ubiquitous styrofoam peanuts. During the unpacking process, a sliver of styrofoam — smaller than a baby aspirin — escaped unnoticed onto the tile floor of our dining room. I finished my lunch and Abbye wandered in for her traditional post-meal treat (she doesn’t beg; she just knows her due). I gave it to her, she scarfed it down, then turned her attention to her food bowl (“gack…dog food again! When will they ever learn?”) and the surrounding floor.
She was nosing around when suddenly she yelped, jumped up in the air and ran to the other side of the room. I looked down, trying to find the cause of her consternation, and all I saw was the tiny piece of styrofoam. She re-approached it with the caution usually reserved for lighted sticks of dynamite and I realized what had happened.
She had gotten within a few inches of the styrofoam when static electricity caused the pellet to jump off the floor and directly onto her nose. I’m surprised that she didn’t spend the rest of the day under the bed, lest she suffer another unprovoked attack.
But, to her credit, she’s not always such a wuss. A while back, we were returning from our morning walk and were passing by our neighbor’s yard just as his sprinkler system was coming on. There’s a row of sprinkler heads next to the sidewalk, and as luck would have it, Abbye was next to one when the soft hissing occurred that presages the rush of water into the nozzle. I had just enough time to turn around, realize what was about to happen, and see her stick her nose into the hole from which the sprinkler head would emerge.
I waited for the inevitable clamor…and it never came! She was startled when the sprinkler head popped up into her face, but she didn’t make a sound. She merely stepped back and continued down the sidewalk as if nothing had happened, although it was difficult to ignore her dripping muzzle and impossible to keep from laughing out loud at her apparent nonchalance.
Abbye is such a treasure!
Static styrofoam peanuts do some pretty freaky things sometimes. They almost act alive.
It’s kind of ironic. The photo of Abbye that loaded when I first accessed the page had her looking sort of pensive with both her ears down.
Sort of a look that said, “there aren’t any more of those spooky peanut things around are there?”
When we lived in Dallas, we had a dog who was much bolder than Abbye about tromping around in the great outdoors. One day, he came to the back door, scratching frantically to get inside. He shot through the door, ran to me, and stretched his front paws up as if to say, “help me!” I looked down and he had a big wolf spider attached to his nose, completely covering it. This was before “Alien,” but that’s what it reminded me of, in hindsight.
Well, you know me and spiders. I can still remember the dog’s expression after I turned him upside down and dragged his snout across the carpet to dislodge the spider. I don’t think he was sure that the ailment was worse than the cure!
Well, at least it got the spider off!
Wolf spiders are harmless (maybe even beneficial outdoors), but they’re yellow-brown and grow to some frighteningly large sizes.
Found a huge one lurking on the curtains this morning.
Hideous creatures.
And, yeah, they DO look like face-huggers!