a cobie tale

Cobie has more vocalizations than I could name–probably more than I can tell apart.  He moos, he warbles, he howls, he chuffs, he woofs, he emits volleys of cannonfire barks, he yaps.  A few of his vocalizations I recognize instantly, for example his, “Help, I’m stuck behind a line!” groan.

For a dog that only cares what I think when it doesn’t inconvenience him overly much, Cobie has an over-the-top respect for physical boundaries.  If I shoo him and Kelly out of the kitchen, he will almost always stay out–even though Kelly almost always won’t.  He won’t come in if the door isn’t all the way open.  He won’t push by a door left partially ajar; he’ll stand on the other side of the threshold, craning his neck to see in, and groan at me til I come open the door.

Or until Kelly does.

This is Cobie in vampire mode, waiting to be invited in.

So after last weekend’s bout of dysentery–now everyone in the house has it–I have a to-do list as long as the street I live on, which is short for a street but long for a to-do list.  Waking up with a sore throat and a stuffy head was not on my list, but I added it in because what can you do?  I let the dogs out and left the door partially ajar, I thought enough so that Cobie wouldn’t go into Vampire Mode.  I grabbed a basket of folded laundry from the living room and headed back to put the things away.  I was sitting on the bed in my underwear trying to pick out socks to put on and feeling sorry for myself because I feel like crapola (again) and even though I only own three kinds of socks, it seemed an impossibly difficult decision.  Black ankle socks, white ankle socks, or white crew socks?  It was, of course, vitally important to choose correctly.

That’s when I heard Cobie groaning.  “Help!  I’m trapped behind a line!”

As soon as I stood up I had to pee (again), so from the toilet I tried calling Cobie.  I don’t know why; that has never once worked and it didn’t work this time either.  He barely comes when called when he isn’t trapped behind a line.

Finally I got enough clothes on to risk going in front of the living room window.  I get to the door (it opens on the garage which opens on the back yard; there is no direct access) expecting to see the familiar and cataclysmically handsome face peering at me with the also familiar expression of both expectancy and disappointment in my slow-ass primate response time.

No Cobie.  Just Kelly sitting on the rug there between the door to the garage and the one to the basement.

Cobie groaned again.  Dammit.  How did he get stuck behind a line outdoors?  I prop the door open with a couple of milk crates so it doesn’t blow shut and trap critters anywhere.  I look, but the crates are still in place and the door to the outside is open.

I put on shoes.  I take my sick self out into the cold and the dark and the drizzle and look for Cobie, and  he is not in the yard.

I freak out.

I hop over Kelly, who is still sitting on the rug, race to the front door, and yank it open.  It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s raining, I’m sick, and the dog who never comes when called is loose.

Then I hear him again, somewhere behind me.

WTF?

So I back track, and finally find him in the basement.  Mr Moth had put up a deck chair, one of those chaise style nylon and aluminum things, to keep the dogs out of the room where Oliver (the cat) is currently recovering from a paw injury.  He can’t hop the gates right now, so his supplies are in the family room, and the dogs keep raiding his dish.  We use the lawn chair because a regular gate, of which I own an abundance after a yard sale score, won’t adjust out wide enough for that doorway.

The chair/chaise/cot thingie looks like this:

It turned out that somehow Cobie had squeezed through the gap between the chair and the wall–a gap left so that if Oliver chooses to come up he can–and then decided he couldn’t get back through the same space.

In fact, he refused to come back through until I slid the entire chair behind the sofa so it was not impeding his progress at all.

Mind you, this is a 110+ pound dog.  He could have hopped the chair at will.  In fact, he hopped a baby gate his third day here.  I scolded him for it, and he has never hopped one since, not even when Kelly does.  (Which she won’t, unless I am on the other side of the gate.)

So there is my morning adventures with Cobie.

He is such a nut.