If there is one thing I know about dogs, it is that they love company. Having people visit allows them to utilize that part of their brain that has been as barren as the planet Mars. Now they can jump on the bed in the guest bedroom, steal food off the counter and rip apart anything that is encased in fabric. I’m a dog lover, don’t get me wrong, but even I know fabric is huge in the dog world.
Dogs know that their human parental units want to put on their best appearance for guests, and that means pretending they are in control of their animals.
The one time they tried to take a nap in the guest bedroom, the mistress of the house went into a tirade that sounded like a couple of macaws mating in a South American rain forest. They were called such ugly things as bad and scolded with the words shame on you. In a dog’s mind this is just plain egregious, obstreperous and outrageous. A lot of them have been to law school.
The gossip amongst the mutts at the dog park is that even a small outline on a bed or couch is enough of a give away to leave them out of the family Christmas card photo.
I observed this recently when I spent time with my two granddogs, a Golden Retriever the size of the state of Ohio and a Black Lab that looks like a building made out of bricks. As soon as they saw me pull into the driveway, they looked at me as if I was a grocery cart with a broken wheel.
Between the sobbing and throwing themselves on the ground, I made a break for it and got to the back porch. Follow us, they panted as we went up to the second floor. They kept looking back over their shoulders to make sure I knew the location of the guest bedroom.
You will love it, the comforter is soft and made of one hundred percent down, plus the sheets are Egyptian cotton with a 300 thread count. We hear that is all good. Here, let us help you with that overnight bag.
They knew the mistress of the house would not object to them coming in while she was chatting. They knew the game, pretended to be sniffing all around, you know what adults expect dogs to do, the simple things that they think make up their day. But this is all part of the act. The real master plan for the guest room will come later when everyone is asleep.
The day will be filled with excitement and lots of baby talk from the guest, whom they love because she doesn’t know about not feeding them from the table.
And so it was that I found myself on the first morning of sleeping in the guest bedroom drawn up in a fetal position. I occupied one square inch of the bed. The rest was taken up by gigantic lumps of dog bodies.
I’d heard some rattling around during the night, but then there would be a pause; dogs know how to pose silently in their tracks. They are the best Special Ops creatures in the world. It is instinctively bred in them. They can wait outside a door all day if they have to just to pick the right time to tiptoe inside. Hold it, hold it.
As soon as I was assured everything was OK, the tiptoeing would start again. Now we can make our move; you go right, I’ll go left and then we leap up and hold it again.
Every morning they would act as if nothing ever happened. They knew I would keep my mouth shut. Sure, they made their escape out of the guest bedroom before the others were awake. And yet somehow their secret was safe with me.
When I left, they stood in the driveway, happy in the knowledge that what happens in the guest room stays in the guest room as far as the dog world is concerned. And so it goes.
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Nancy Katz has a degree in creative writing and is the author of the book, "Notes from the Beach." She has written the column Around Town for the Cape Gazette for twenty years. Her style is satirical and deals with all aspects of living in a resort area on Delmarva.
