Mea culpa
Last night, Peter wanted to get to bed early (he has to get up before 6am and he is the one earning us a living) so I said I would take Rocky our for his final constitutional before I came upstairs, as I was watching a movie. When that time came, we went out. The snow by then was about two inches deep on the ground. I had wanted to observe (and take pictures of) Rocky in his first “real” snow and of course, it was at night. Oh well. He scooted around in the snow, running along with his mouth open and snapping up the new snow on the grass. He’d run along a little, obviously sniffing and then snort out a bunch of snow from his nostrils. It was fun to watch. He finally had his poop and we went back to the house.

All he needs is his paws dried off but I have to take off the coat, hat. gloves, boots, etc. and then flush the poop, hang up the leash, etc. Anyway, I put him in his crate and went upstairs. At 1:30am, I was awakened by Rocky’s sharp little bark. I wondered what could he be barking about because he’d had his evening poop. I got up at his second bark, put on some clothes and went downstairs. I was glad that Peter didn’t appear to have awakened.

I let Rocky out of the crate and opened the back door and he didn’t want to go out. I felt the cold wind whistling around my ankles (no socks) and told him he HAD to go out because I was UP. He went out and I shut the door. He peed and then nosed around. I called him back but he didn’t come. Grrr. I went to the front door where we hang the whistle used for both meals and recall. That’s when I saw the front door was OPEN and snow was drifting into the house. I was aghast. I had forgotten the lock the door and it had blown open in the wind.

That’s what Rocky was barking at - something wasn’t right in his house. It wasn’t quite up to “Timmy’s down the well” but I was full of conflicting emotions right then. I ran back to the back door and he was standing on the steps, waiting for me to let him in. I did and said “thank you” right out loud to him, for alerting me to this situation I had created. I put him in his crate and then I wondered if anything had come IN the open door. I checked the front step for footprints and there weren’t any, no cat or even squirrel prints. What a relief. I still checked around but everything else seemed normal.

Then it hit me - what if he had NOT been confined to his crate? Rocky would have gone out the front door exploring! If anything had happened to him, I would have been obliged to throw myself into traffic. What a realization - it really shook me. I suppose “all’s well that ends well” but still.

Dogs love their routine and they are suspicious of anything different. Thank goodness. And I will check the door two or even three times now, every time I come back in. I am feeling bad enough so let’s not forget what Jesus said in John 8:7, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”