I have a story to tell you of something that happened in the Griffie household a couple of weeks ago. I was going to blog about it before, but then Ike hit Texas and caused so much devastation, that I didn’t want to post my small little complaints – or you might think I’m a whiner. The bottom line is that I feel sorry for all of the people and pups who have been without power for an extended period of time. I can’t even imagine how scary it must be for some. I am saying extra prayers to the great Dachshund in the sky that everyone gets back to normal soon.

So what happened in the Griffie household? Let me tell you. . . A couple of weeks ago, all of a sudden, the power went out. My Papa went to check to make sure that we hadn’t just blown a fuse, because that does happen from time to time. My Mama was at work at the time, and they didn’t lose power, so she was sitting in a nice air-conditioned office, while Grypon, Elsa, Papa and I were sweating it out at home. It was a tremendously hot day as well, so that didn’t help matters any. Well, it definitely wasn’t a fuse. Our neighbor, Charlie and his family were also without power. Charlie, by the way is a new puppy who has moved in behind us and we bark at each other all the time. My Papa checked everything out and found out that the whole block at least where we live was without power.

We tried to stay as cool as possible and waited for Mama to come home from work. Well, she brought dinner home with her because she wouldn’t have been able to fix anything without power anyway and we had a nice dinner on the front porch because it was cooler there than anywhere else. Our front porch has jasmine covering the lattice, so it smells really good too. As it was getting dark, Mama and Papa were relaxing on the porch and Gryphon, Elsa and I were enjoying the smells and barking at passersby. No one was inside as it was too hot and too dark inside the houses.

Then we heard the bad news. . . the power was going to remain off until about 1:30 in the morning. Papa and Mama decided that since it seemed to be a localized problem with the power, that they would go over to GrandMuttMa & GrandPupPaw’s house for the night because Mama was really tired and didn’t want to get up and check things in the middle of the night. Plus, it was too hot for her to sleep. So, she went inside to get everything ready.

She brought out our harnesses, so we would be prepared for the drive and Papa got us ready, and then we went in the house to get our leashes and make sure everything was turned off and locked up. Because it was sooo dark, Papa couldn’t see and hooked two leashes to Elsa, and none to me. He called for me to come outside with him, and I didn’t like to disobey, so I went. But, since I wasn’t hooked up to anything, I decided to go and check to make sure that the car was ready.

Papa realized I wasn’t with him and started to panic. He handed the leashes to Mama, who was wondering why if he had 3 leashes, he didn’t have 3 dogs. He was running around trying to find me, and Mama had gone back inside and started calling for me, in case I had come back inside.

You see, being a black dog, in a pitch black house, no one can see me. I heard my Mama calling for me and so I went up the front steps and was on the front porch knocking on the door when my Papa found me. I guess Mama couldn’t hear me knocking over her yelling my name.

Papa was so happy to find me again, he kept telling me how glad that I wasn’t lost or hit by a car. Of course I wasn’t lost. I knew exactly where I was the whole time. Papa was the one who was losing it.

Anyway, all you dogs out there need to remember that your parents are easily excitable, so you have to help reassure them by sticking by their side as much as possible. Really, if I’d known how much chaos I would cause by simply checking to see whether I could get into the car or not, I would have stayed with my Papa until he realized I didn’t have a leash.