Sleeps with Wolves

My dogs sleep outside with the wolves. They curl up tightly in draft-proof doghouses stuffed with hay, and sleep with one eye open (because of the wolves) until things warm up, which they always do.

I learned years ago to make it easy on myself at feed/watering time everyday by filling the water buckets only half-full, as it necessitated me breaking out less ice the following day when the chore was repeated. Better to lift only five pounds rather than ten. 

I feed my dogs a good, balanced, commercial dogfood; one with a high protein count (not cheap), and pour the water to them. 

I have only three dogs at present: a lab, a German Shepherd, and a Chesapeake mix, who's probably smarter than the other two, and I know twice as mean. One of the three really sleeps outside with the wolves. 

Heidi, the shepherd, refuses to sleep in her house unless it is raining. I think it's probably too hot in there for her. What, a week ago, when it got down below zero, and the pipes froze in the house? She was curled up in a tight fuzzy ball right outside the kitchen window under the mercury vapor light in the backyard where I could see her anytime I wanted. 

I'm always late to bed, and like her sleep with one eye open. Maybe for the same reason. It was easy for me to check on her during the night between book chapters, and I did. She stayed curled up right there in short grass with a light snow drifting down on her like powdered sugar. By watching carefully, about every thirty seconds I could see her left eyelash flutter to flick off the snow, the right completely covered over. Anybody that didn't know, looking at her, might think her dead, but then they would think otherwise if they stepped into the yard uninvited. 

She has another endearing habit that pleases the paranoiac in me. About every two hours during the night, she will arise from her solid, warm bed and pick out another bedding spot, always with an eye (apparently) to strategic advantage. 

How could I not love a dog like that? She's not for sale, of course. 

When I bought her (she was not cheap), it was a cold, gray, windy day in February and she was lying with her littermates on cold, grey concrete. So were all the other dogs in the multi-kennel operation, regardless of age or sex. I could see a well-insulated, solid wood, dog box in every kennel run; every box full of clean hay. So, I had to ask.

"What's the deal? Wouldn't they be warmer in the doghouse?" 

"Yep. That's the problem. Look at their coats." 

Well, yes. Look at their coats. An Alaskan grey wolf couldn't have been better furred. 

When I brought Heidi home and put her in Pam's lap where she was sitting at the kitchen table, Pam hugged her close, and her hand, small to begin with, completely disappeared in puppy fur. A wolf's first cousin? I think so, maybe. 

Real wolves, you know, used to eat coyotes when there were still plenty of grey wolves around to do the eating. The real wolves are gone now; the coyotes all over the place, laughing out of the sides of their mouths. 

I know this: when the midnight Burlington Northern passes our house a half-mile to the north on any cold, moonlit night, whistle moaning at the crossing, the "prairie wolves", you know, coyotes, will howl all up and down Baker's Branch setting the lab and the chessie mix on a howling songfest of their own, noses straight up into a starry, starry sky. 

Not Heidi. She paces deliberately down into the bottom of the front yard where it merges with Corps property, sits stolidly as if partly imbedded in the ground, and looks straight into the dark woods, every hackle on her back standing straight up, her ears stiff and pointing at whatever is down there in the woods. She would love for it to come into her yard, where she could get ahold of it. 

How could I not love a dog like that?

© 2016 Conrad M. Vollertsen