The Hooligan

While Mommy was cleaning up the side yard today, Guinness found another way to escape from the yard. Once Guinness started trying to venture from the yard when a puppy, I set up the plastic chickenwire fence at the front to keep him from running away. But there was a gap where he could escape under the bushes and jump off the wall. I filled the gap with a window screen wedged in the branches of the bushes. This past spring, when the leaves grew on the current bushes, I thought that Guinness had grown too big to fit through that opening, and, besides, the leaves hid the fact that there was an escape route there. We were fine all summer. Now that the leaves are gone, Guinness has been investigating this weak spot. I knew that he could push his body through there if he tried hard enough. Well, today while I was pooper scooping, he did it! I didn’t see it happen, but he was in front of the wall, looking rather dazed. His leash was caught on a corner of the concrete wall, keeping him from running away. When I called him to “come,” he jumped back up the wall and I guided him back through the branches. Then I promptly pulled a screen out of the garage and wedged it into the bushes again. Not very pretty in our front yard, but quite utilitarian.


After our walk and before jumping in the shower, I wrapped a gift for Christine and hot glued a stem of holly on the gift ("Dogs Never Lie About Love" by Masson). I placed it in the center of the dining room table so that Guinness would leave it alone. I also placed a bag of treats for Sasha beside the gift. Then I foolishly told Guinness that Sasha and Christine were coming. He went beserk!!! He ran to the window looking for them at the front door, barked at me, ran to the deck door, then back to the kitchen window. He was ecstatic and could not understand that “wait” meant two more hours.

While showering, Guinness did not lie at my shower door, so I wondered what he was up to. You probably think that he reached the bag of treats and ate them. Nope! He left the treats untouched on the table. Guess again! He ate most of the holly stem, leaving the gift otherwise unscathed. It might not have been "cute" if he had left teeth marks in the book! ha!


That placed him in timeout.



The appointed time finally arrived with a canine and a human guest at the door. Talk about excited! Guinness’s spirit and body were unrestrained! Once I was able to pull him away from the doorway so that they could enter, he jumped and jumped (Christine came prepared wearing “dog clothes.”). Then, unbridled, he raced in a circle through the hallway, living room, dining room, and kitchen a couple of times. Sasha tried to tell him off, but it didn’t faze Guinness. By the time Guinness finally calmed down a bit, Christine and I were both out of breath! We were able to sit sedately sipping our eggnog lattes and munching on Christmas treats while keeping Guinness pacified with carrots. Unfortunately, we have caved in to feeding Guinness occasional goodies to keep him well behaved while we eat. Of course, Sasha, with perfect manners, rested politely on his mother’s lap the whole time.





After moving to the living room, we heard Sasha making ferocious sounds. Then we saw Sasha attacking Guinness. Hurray! Sasha is learning that he can tell this boisterous creature to back off. After Sasha had nestled on Christine’s lap on the sofa for a while, he slid off, leaving Guinness the opportunity of climbing up on her lap. It was more important to get him off her than to capture that scene with my camera.