The Night Boo Got Lost

This is Boo.

One night, back when she was about 6 months old, I was running my paper route { a middle of the night paper route dovetailed nicely with my Gradual School schedule} with her and Princess Bomb in the bed of the truck. Now, Princess had taken to riding in the bed of the Ranger like a duck takes to water. I just assumed Boo would, too. Except for some initial clumsiness, which I wrote off to her being a puppy and/or gettin' pushed around by the Alpha Dominant Princess, she was doing fine. Until the night we crossed paths with "The CAT."

Now, don't get all excited. I'm not talking about a cougar, or even a bobcat. It was just a stray, domestic cat. Might even have been some one's pet that was out prowling for the night. It was moving from one place of concealment to another, and caught Boo's attention. Now, I had never seen Boo when she had seen a cat, so I didn't know of her, um, how shall I say?, antipathy, towards all things feline. She gets one look at this kitty, and she goes completely Bonkers. She starts barking furiously, frenziedly moving from one end of the bed to the other so as to keep her prey in sight, and just generally acting like a MAD DOG! Princess, as the Alpha Bitch, feels duty bound to honor Boo's alert, and takes up the call with her own barking and moving about. After I round the corner, they settle down and all is quiet, once again.

All this excitement occurred at the tail end of the route, so I just finished up and went home. When I got out of the cab and went to drop the tailgate to let the girls out..."Where's Boo?" I literally asked Princess, out loud. And I think I was so shocked, and tired, I halfway expected an answer.

I hop back in the cab, fired up the engine and began to retrace the route, backwards. I was scanning the roadsides and sidewalks in the pre-dawn darkness for the Boo Girl. When I got to the street where the loathsome CAT had been spotted, there she was. Sitting in the middle of the street, looking around, tongue lolling out of her mouth. She looked at me as if to say, "Where you been, Mom? I've been right here, waitin' like a good girl. Boy, I'm thirsty!"

I slammed the truck into park, jumped out of the cab and scooped her into my arms. I was kissin' her little face, and she was lickin' my face; I'm not sure who was happier to see whom. I put her in the cab, and flicked the top off my Sonic cup. She drank the ice water so quickly she got "Brain Freeze". You ever see a dawg with "brain freeze"? It's a hoot!

The rub their tongue against the roof of their mouth, kinda like they do when they get a taste of peanut butter. But while they are doing the tongue thing, they also shake their head from side to side, very violently. And they do this until the "brain freeze" is gone. Man, the first time, every time, it's funny, I don't care who you are!

Funny thing, the reason I think Princess PUSHED Boo out of the bed of the truck in an attempt to get rid of the "interloper" is that after this incident, Princess started jumped the fence at every opportunity she got. If that's not acting out behavior, I don't know what is. Can I be a doggie psychologist, now?