A little backstory here. About things in the Land of Polly Goggles. But where to start?
We are fortunate to live on about 130 acres, out in the country. As such, we see a fair amount of beautiful wildlife. There are deer, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, a wide variety of bugs, frogs, toads, lizards. There are fox, possum, groundhogs, moles, and, of course, raccoons.
We also have a couple of ponds. We have a farm pond and a modest size koi pond. In the center of the koi pond, where the water is about 5 and 1/2 feet deep, a large bubbling rock sits, and does what it does. Currently, about 20 burly koi reside.
More backstory. I am a scheduled person. I do things at mostly the same time, especially where eating and sleeping are concerned. Not only for myself but for the dogs too. Granted, they can sleep whenever they’d like, but at the end of the day, we all have our bedtime.
Finally, not long before bedtime, we have what is known as “potty time.” Not for me, but for the dogs. This is when I announce to the house, “C’mon dogs. It’s potty time.” Excitement ensues, and all three of us rush toward the backdoor. The anticipation never disappoints.
Once we go out into the darkness, Ollie rushes off to places unknown. My first assumption was that she enjoys a certain level of privacy. What really happens is dog-exploration time. You see, she translates, “Potty time” to “Ollie look for cats and squirrels and other things.” So off she goes to look, and hopefully, the notion to relieve herself will hit during her adventures. Lou, little Lou, stays right with me.
And. Finally, the story. Last night, all of the above occurred right on time. But within five minutes, we heard Ollie barking non-stop. While this is not a frequent thing, it does happen on occasion. This means she has “found” something. In her dog make-up, her dog DNA, she does not know what to do. You see, she is half Jack Russell Terrier, and half Pekingnese. As you can tell, conflicting stories are going on in her mind. When she finds wildlife, a dialogue plays out in that brain. “I want to kill this thing. But. Oh god, I’m afraid I’ll muss my hair.” So she barks. On most nights, when this happens, she tires after an hour and relents. I can find her, panting, at the back door.
Last night, that was not the case.
I can typically find her quickly, at the bird feeders, where a raccoon sits at the top, hugging one of the feeders, looking to me for guidance. Again, not the case.
I located Ollie at the Koi Pond.
She jostled back and forth on the edge of the large boulders which surround the pond. Barking, barking, barking. Crazy Pekingnese barking. In the center, tottering on the bubbling rock, with water shooting up its rear end, was a raccoon, in full panic. Once again, it looked to me for advice, shrugging its little furry shoulders, saying, “A little help here, please.”
At this point, I am trying to assess the situation quickly. I am in my pajamas and slippers, the taste of toothpaste still fresh in my mouth. Per the schedule, I should be slipping under the covers about now. A great idea springs on me like a firework erupting in the night sky. I say:
“Ollie! Now that’s enough. Come here.”
As you might imagine, and as I now see in hindsight, this has little effect. I adapt.
“Ollie! Now that’s enough. Come here.” This time louder, and clapping my hands twice.
She continues to romp around on the rocks, at water’s edge, barking. The raccoon is having a full enema by now. I take a couple of steps off the paved patio area and get nearer to the rim of the pond. This was either enough to distract Ollie, or to encourage her, as she either fell into the water, or she jumped.
Ollie is getting older. She has always been a little bit on the heavy side as well. And. As I found out last night — and she did too — Ollie can not swim.
Now both Ollie and I are panicking. The raccoon gives a wave, dives in the water, pulls up on the other side, and heads for home. Meanwhile, Ollie is kicking and flailing, barely keeping her mouth above water. I go full splay on the ground nearest her drowning self, reach in as far as I can without actually swimming, managing to grab her collar and pull her up and out of the pond.
She thanks me by standing directly over me and shaking.
And that was the end of our ordeal.
I don’t think either one of us has fully recovered.
But last night, we both cleaned up and eventually went to our beds, dreaming of raccoons at health spas, taking high colonics.
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“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.”
— Rabindranath Tagore
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“I only fear danger where I want to fear it.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
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“The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.”
― Richard M. Nixon
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