Ombrophobic Canine

Today was the fourth consecutive rainy day in Midland. I know that doesn’t sound like much to some of you, but this is the desert, folks, and we’re more accustomed to measuring rainfall in terms of consecutive minutes rather than days.

If you talk to any real west Texan, they’ll be ambivalent about a situation like this. We need the rain; we always need the rain. Nobody will seriously speak out against the rain. But, deep in our heart of hearts, we know that four straight days of rain is just too dang much. We also need the sunshine.

Still, in our household, the one who suffers most from this climatological situation is Abbye, the dog-like creature who shows up at mealtime but rarely any other. You see, Abbye is deeply ombrophobic. She hates being rained on. In her doggy little mind, those aren’t just drops of water…they’re radioactive knives coated with arsenic and acid.

The practical implication is no laughing matter: she will not venture outside to, um, do her business if there is actual rain actively dropping from the sky. She’d rather live with all four legs crossed than risk a precipitation-marred trip to the backyard. And just forget about walking down to the park in the drizzle.

I’ve taken her out in the drizzle before, forcing her outside before she literally explodes. After being dragged three blocks to the park, she’ll take care of business — after all, she’s already wet — but then she’ll just sit down in the middle of the sidewalk and glare at me, her wet ears hanging from her head like weird forelocks. If I concentrate, I can hear her plotting the call to the SPCA in which she’ll accuse me of abuse beyond belief.

The ironic thing is that Abbye is, by all indications, a water dog. She’s got webbed toes and her undercoat is not unlike a duck’s; I’m not sure her skin ever gets wet. She’ll slog through standing water without flinching. It’s those tiny drops of death from above that she just can’t tolerate.

Fortunately for both of us, it appears that the rain is starting to clear out. For most of us in this part of the country, the thinking is that the next drought has now begun. For Abbye, it’s just a brief respite before the next killing rain appears.