A Visit From Black Dog

Our winter weather here has kept us from seeing our friendly neighborhood dog.Either we have had the house closed up or lately huge amounts of snow.However a week ago this past Sunday events came together and black dog dropped by.

After getting over thirty inches of snow over a ten day period and the city working for three weks straight we were finally able to move around without much trouble.Our street was passable and you could use the sidewalk.While there are tremendous mountains of snow piled up in numerous places people could now go about normal business.

This particular Sunday my wife mentioned she would like to go see a friend that afternoon and would I mind.I told her go ahead I'll hang out here at home and you gals have a good time.I was in the living room and heard her start out of the driveway when she honked.I went out to see what she wanted and she asked me to look and see if we had some corn in the freezer to go with supper.I kissed her goodbye and told her I would take care of it.I stood in the driveway as she pulled away.Standing in the sun felt nice and I thought I better check the front porch to make sure it was clear of ice.We had had a couple of days where it would do some melting in the day time then refreeze at night.After checking the porch I decided I better clean it off a little and went inside to get some things.Going back out I went to work on the porch and had the top cleared off.I sat down to smoke a cigarette when black dog appeared.

He came up the walk and gave me a hopeful look while wagging his tail.I spread my arms as if to say I have nothing and he stood about three feet away.A truck came down the street and suddenly stopped.The passenger side window came down and the driver called to black dog.Black dog ran behind me as if he were hiding.The driver pulled the truck into my driveway and got out.It was then I recognized Mr. Pulaski black dogs owner.Black dog moved to my side keeping me inbetween him and Mr. Pulaski.Not being able to cross the yard because of the snow piled there Mr.Pulaski walked down the drive and then up the walk.Black dog got behind me again and as Mr.Pulaski got to the bottom of the porch steps jumped from the porch to the top of a snow pile and ran up the drive to the back of the house.Mr. Pulaski was explaining he'd been chasing black dog for over an hour and was getting pretty well pissed off at him.I was laughing and saying I got a huge kick out of black dog when we heard barking.I got up and we walked over to the end of the driveway.There was black dog barking and pawing at my back door. The only conclusion I could come to was that he thought my wife was inside and would save him.

Mr. Pulaski walked up the drive and while black dog looked for a way to escape he surrendered and Mr. Pulaski got a leash on him.Giving me a dirty look black dog turned and gave one more bark at the door.He seemed to say thanks for nothing.It took an effort but Mr. Pulaski got the dog into the truck and they left.

I went back to clearing the steps of ice but couldn't help wonder if black dog was mad at us now and take us off his to visit list.