A Burst of Freedom by Pocket

When our parents are away from us, it seems like every minute lasts an hour.  We don’t know if they will return.  It is terribly frightening.  I don’t want my parents to know that worry because I Iove them.  But last Sunday I did, inadvertently, given them a taste of that fear.

I have a different harness since the previous one injured my trachea.  When you get a new harness all those annoying tags that we are forced to wear have to be transferred from one harness to the other.  Earlier that day my Mom did just that using one of those little wire ring things.

My Dad did not notice the tags.  When we left for our walk Daddy clipped my leash to the small ring with the tags.  We were on our usual walk when we passed my friend the Corgi’s house.  The Corgi came to the window to bark at us.  I went ahead, pulling the leash tight, and barked back at him.

Suddenly the little ring holding my tags gave way.  My tags flew in the air.  I kept walking, now unleashed.  Where we live has very few cars, and there were none in sight.  I crossed the street where Corgi was barking in the window.  I went up the house, which was ten feet from the road, barked at Corgi, walked to the side lawn, peed, and got picked up by Daddy.

It was not long at all.

But to my parents this is what happened:  My tags exploded, and the leash came undone.  I crossed a street (thank God there were no cars coming). They yelled at me to come to them, but I ignored them.  (They also forgot the word come and just started screaming random words like “banana” and “rankle rotary engine.”)  I would not listen and ran away from them.

Daddy was also holding River’s leash while he was trying to run after me and River was having none of it.  She sat down like a ten-pound boulder and Daddy was trying to drag her and catch me.  He still pulled River an Olympic distance before Mommy, who was frozen watching me, stepped forward and took River’ leash.  This entire horrible process took about three seconds, but to my parents, it seemed 20 minutes.

Daddy then walked onto the stranger’s property where I was barking.  He went to pick me up, but I darted away from him.  That is when I took a few steps to my right to pee but Daddy saw me running down the street and disappearing into the woods while he posted my picture on Facebook and on every lamppost in town.

I finished peeing and waited for Daddy to pick me up and put the leash on me to continue our walk.  My, did they make a fuss over me.  I was only loose for a few seconds.  My parents reacted like we dogs react when they come home.  I felt very loved.

I hoped they learned their lesson and never leave the house again.