Where’d it go, Ern?

Visiting College Station last week on business I took the opportunity to stop at a Petco. They have everything imaginable for dogs.

Ernie is a connoisseur of a certain type of toy that I knew would be a good present.

Shelf shopping up and down the aisles I found the small fuzzy ones that have an embedded small balloon-like device that squeaks when bitten hard. And I have my own theory that dogs can distinguish colors, if not shades of them, so I bought one that was fire-engine red.

Sure enough he has been happily playing with it and knows what “Where is your new toy?” means.

This morning, however, we went for our normal walk and upon return I looked for it on the bed where it usually rests with a couple older ones.

After I asked him to get the new toy he made a brief look around and picked up the old blue one. I said, “Ernie, where’s your new toy – the red one -not the old one?”

A few variations on that theme didn’t get a response either.

As I began to look around Ernie dropped the old one and went under the bed to his brand new sanctum sanctorum. It is equivalent to what we as kids would call our secret hut or clubhouse.

[Originally he has been using that spot only during stormy weather; the lightning, thunder and howling winds scare the little big guy.]

I began looking everywhere for it. Since the Shack is a minimalist’s delight it took me only three or four minutes to reach a dead end: where was the red toy?

Coming very late to the possibility I got down on all fours, contorted myself into a human version of the letter “U”, craned my head to the left and under the bed looked directly into two very brown eyes partially framed by the new fire-engine red squeaky dog toy!

ERNIE! YOU HAVE THE TOY? DOWN THERE?

I started to laugh and laugh feeling I had just been conned by my pal, my BBF.

Of course, he is just a dog and I shouldn’t attribute human motives to an animal despite a man’s best friend relationship.

So as of this writing I am still laughing and will continue to.

Ernie simply decided to find and ensconce himself in a dark, tiny space with something of his own.

And I thought we shared everything. [More laughs]

We will explore this event during our nightly Ernie and Dad tailgate chat.

I look forward to many more light-hearted moments with this surprising animal.

[P.S. It will stay down under as long as he wants.]

************POST-TAILGATE UPDATE*************

This is tough even for me to believe, but here it is.

Ernie and I did talk on the tailgate. I asked him a few times what happened to the new toy?

Well, I put Ernie back into the Shack and remained outside to water my veggies in the raised bed.

By the time I came back inside and began to make dinner I looked over at the bed and………. THE NEW TOY WAS SITTING ON IT.

Ernie had returned it.

Amazing. Truly amazing.