JASMIN

Would you mind checking on Jasmin this weekend while I go camping? What a stupid question. As much as Janice had done for me of course I wouldn't mind checking on her dog…no “problemo”. I ran by Friday night and Jasmin was fine. She was staying in the back yard and was glad to see me. Water & food was fine… all was well. A few pats on the head and off I go. By lunchtime Saturday, I made my second run. I go to the back door and Jasmin is not there to greet me. I walk out on the deck and don’t see her in the yard. I call, and no Jasmin. I get an uneasy sick feeling in my stomach. Did she dig out under the fence? Did she crawl up under the deck and die? Did somebody steal her? Did she bark all night and the neighbors killed her and carried her off? My thoughts went back to the time our dog Trooper had killed the neighbor’s cat and dropped the body in our yard. I had sinned by getting one of my boys to bury it without telling them. I figured they’d had enough stress from recently finding one of their other cats hung by a chain in a tree. Had all this come back to haunt me? Doesn’t the bible say that your sins will find you out? I snapped back into reality and walked around the yard. I notice an open window with a hole in the screen… a very large hole. Mystery solved. I go back inside and call Jasmin. No response…total silence. I make my way upstairs to check out the bedrooms. There she was… snuggled up at the foot of Janice’s bed…never raising her head with the only sound of life coming from her wagging tail as it pounded the floor. She knew she had done wrong but was throwing on the charm with those sweet puppy dog eyes. I tried to pick her up but she gave a slight growl even with her tail wagging. I decided to try to bribe her back downstairs with some cheese. She took some cheese as she lay there but when I backed toward the door offering more, she wouldn’t budge. I remembered where Janice kept her leash and thinking I was going to have to drag her back down the stairs, she surprised me by hopping right up and willingly going back downstairs and outside. I then had the task of barricading the window. She wasn’t going to get through again if I had anything to do with it. I found the baby gates Janice used when Jasmin was inside. I propped one on the inside and one outside. I reinforced them with chairs, grills and lawn furniture. Nope… she wasn’t getting back in. Mission accomplished.

Janice returned Sunday and asked me how it went. I relayed the story, apologized for the screen but was quite proud of the barricades. She then asked me a very pointed question. “Why didn’t you just shut the window?”……………