Things That Go Crash In The Night

Sometimes being right isn't as great as you'd like it to be.  I know, it sounds surprising, but I'm betting many  of you out there with spouses, significant others or who have shared your life with another person at one time can relate.  It all happened Wednesday night. 

Turn out at our house is an orchestrated event.  We have a turn out pen and the Greyhounds have always been used to taking care of business in there.  However, when Morgan came home, Mr. Taleteller was reluctant to train her to use the pen.  Okay, the truth is, he couldn't bear to just put her in there and make her deal with having to go in there, so his girl gets walked out in the yard to do her business.  It's a bit safer anyway, because I fear that she has a good chance of knocking Lilac down in there in her, ahem, youthful exhuberance.  I have put her in the pen on occasion, but she seems clueless about getting down to business in there and prefers to spend the time barking at Sammy, the neighbor dog, or anybody who might be walking down the street. 

So, turn out involves taking the hounds out to the pen.  During that time, Morgan is in her crate, howling like a banshee because they are going out somewhere without her.  Then, Morgan goes out on a leash in the yard by the pen and takes care of her business.  She's brought back inside and  then the Greyhounds are fetched out of the pen and brought back in the house.  

It all sounds very simple, doesn't it?  Of course, there's a complication.  You knew there was going to be one.  Morgan is not happy anytime any of us leaves the house without her.  She runs to the kitchen windows in the corner and leaps up to see what's going on outside.  I told Mr. Taleteller that she's going to break that window one day.  He poo pooed me, acting like I had bats in the belfry and that his girl does not have any sort of deficiency in her perfect behavior.  No matter how sweetly I have mentioned that I thought this was an issue, I was ignored.  If I'm in the living room or kitchen, I can curb her behavior.  I tell her "off" or rattled the dreaded shake can, or if she just can't control herself at all, I send her to her crate.  Once the cycle of barking is stopped or the departing party has returned, all is okay in her world and we return to normal. 

Well, darned if I wasn't right.  Wednesday night we arrived home and I was in the bathroom taking out my contacts when I heard a loud crash just after my husband had brought her back inside.  I rushed out to find out what she or Mr. Taleteller had broken.  It could have been either of them at that point.  I yelled out and got no reply from hubby.  The next thing I knew, he was a blur.  Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen him move so fast.  Come to think of it, when I passed out after the bike ride debacle a couple of years ago, I am reasonably sure that he didn't even move so fast then.  He flew into the house to see if Morgan was okay.  That's when I saw it, from the kitchen doorway -- the glass hanging askew and partly missing from the kitchen window. 

Morgan was checked briefly and then put in the crate.  Mr. Taleteller started picking up glass, but then realized the girls were still outside and went to bring them in.  We blockaded that corner and set their food out to keep them out of the way.  We set to work cleaning up the glass carefully and then got Morgan back out of her crate and gave her a very thorough check.  She didn't have any injuries, cuts or glass in her fur.  Mr. Taleteller and I both managed to get the glass cleaned up without injury as well.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that the cost of being right is a twenty dollar piece of glass and a small fragment of your spouse's pride.  Seeing your husband happy with his dream girl is priceless, though.  All's well that ends well.  Funny that Mr. Taleteller took her wherever he went on Thursday -- probably out of fear that I'd throttle her.  It was tempting, but not worth seeing the end of a boy and his dog so happy together.  I believe window avoidance training has already commenced.

Maybe my New Year's resolution should be not to gloat...  Nah!