Quirky Worky = Freaky Friday

Our job is pretty routine. We teach in the morning and then we walk dogs the rest of the day. Not a bad gig, if you ask me, but then again, I’m a dog so teaching and walking are activities I’m good at. But today we had to be crime fighters and that threw some quirks into our work making this kind of a freaky Friday.

Everything started out okay. We work with our students in the morning, scurried out as soon as we could since we had to pick up Saber first. It’s not normal to walk Saber first but his parents have flown off to London and they left very early this morning. To make certain Saber wasn’t crossing his legs, we walked quickly to his house to check on him.

He was surprised though excited to see us so early and once he was leashed up, we headed through the park to Monty’s house. Monty is who we usually walk first on Fridays, but since Saber had a special need, Monty had to wait and be second today.

Oh my. Something just occurred to me, but I’ll tell the story first.

So, as we headed up the street from the park to Monty’s house, who do we see standing in the middle of the road? Monty. What? “Is his mom home?” I wondered quickly. “No, she wouldn’t let him out in the road.” And then it dawned on me — something’s wrong.

Boy was I ever right though I didn’t want to be. Someone had kicked in his door. Monty’s house had been robbed! We called the police. We called Monty’s mom at work. We waited for the police, but they didn’t show up before Monty’s mom arrived. She went inside and nothing was stolen.

What? Nothing? When the police did arrive (much later), they said that the current thefts have been about laptops and flat screen TVs. Monty has neither so they grabbed what they could — some cash — and raced out the door. After much deduction, we figured out that the thieves broke in sometime between 10 and 10:30. Here’s the thing I just thought about — IF we’d been on our normal schedule and walked Monty first, we would have run into those thieves maybe even preventing the break in.

I sure would have shown my police dog colors if that had happened!  Monty is one of my best friends and I would have bitten those nasty robbers where it hurts if I’d a seen ’em.

Thankfully, though, they didn’t get much and the real cost is the new door they’ll have to have put in. Monty is safe, which makes me particularly happy, and though we didn’t stop a robbery in progress, we were right there to report the crime.

Of course, the whole thing set our timing off. I mean there we were, waiting for the police and Monty’s mom — all three of us (Saber, Monty, and me) and when no one came, we had to call Jessica and Quillette (who live on the next block) and ask them to wait since we had to get Saber home.

Very active morning, eh? Sorry…no pictures. We were too worried about everything to whip out the camera. Oh well. Saber was on the docket later as was Monty so we decided to get photos later. Happier photos.

Saber headed back home and Monty and I waited at our house while Gretchen walked Rosie. And if you remember, Gretchen needed to test her orange hand theory. Rosie has been a bit timid about taking treats from Gretchen. She assumed it was because she’d just peeled an orange right before walking Rosie, but that theory didn’t pan out. No orange and Rosie was still timid. Weird.

So on their walk, Gretchen worked on building trust again with Rosie who, by the end of the walk, wasn’t nearly as timid. Who knows why Rosie all of the sudden finds Gretchen’s hands kind of freaky.

After Rosie, Gretchen swung by Gemma’s house and then over the Oshi and Perrito’s so the three of them could play at the tennis courts.

They play kind of funny. Oshi hangs out as close as he can get to Gretchen…

Gemma and Perrito wait for Gretchen to throw the ball…

They chase the ball and each other, but neither one of them brings it back…go figure!

Still, everyone ran around a bit and that seemed to make them all happy.

What made me happy was when Gretchen swung by the house to pick us up to walk Gemma home and then we got to play fetch at the little field!

Because of the quirky day, Gretchen hadn’t eaten yet so we stopped by the house for a drink of water while she ate some leftovers. Just as we were heading out the door, Jessica came by with Quillette. They were going to walk to the library so we swung by Saber’s house again (our last walk of the day) and then made our way up to the library. Gretchen REALLY wanted to get a photo of the four of us outside the big glass windows of the library, but no one wanted to cooperate…well, accept me.

Saber wanted to roll around in the grass…

Monty wanted to play with me (yes, I’m right there behind him)…

And Quillette wanted treats and kept looking on the ground for droppings…Saber joined her!

This was the closest photo we could get and even though it looks like Saber is choking, he’s just trying to figure out a way to get his collar off. He hates that thing, but we love it because it keeps him from pulling too much.

On our way back to Saber’s house, I realized that the day had calmed down a bit. While our routine was interrupted in the morning, we got back on track and ended on a good note. Monty was happy to be home with his Mom this afternoon, Saber was ready for a long nap until the house sitters arrived, and I am ready to eat my dinner, curl up on my bed, and sleep until the sun comes up tomorrow morning.

Have a great weekend,

Rubin

PS — The skull photo was taken this afternoon…after the day was coming to a close. Gretchen thought it was the perfect punctuation mark to a very freaky Friday!