My Own Super Hero

Smokey has always been my eager to please dog. If someone in the house is in trouble, he’s certain its him, and he will come to make amends. If someone is being called, he’s certain he needs to be there as well.

Most of the time, this isn’t a problem, though sometimes there are space issues that need to be dealt with. One time, though, he took it to super doggie levels, and nearly gave me a heart attack.

Important to know was that it was a warm summer day. Our house did not have air conditioning, so the windows were open. We did not have screens.

We were coming in the house and not paying quite enough attention. The dogs escaped. We were quickly able to corral Smokey, but Moree had gone into escape evasion mode. We got Smokey back in the house and closed the door. We then started calling Moree. (This never worked unless he’d already been out for hours, but we always tried anyway.)

Smokey heard us calling through the open windows and knew, knew in his doggie heart that we needed him. He had to get to us.

The problem was that almost all of the windows looked out over the fully fenced back yard. In fact, there was only one window that looked out over the front of the house- our master bedroom window, on the second floor, right above the driveway.

He came flying out that window, certain that he was needed. As he sailed to the ground, on the far side of the car, we were afraid he would hit his head on the hood. Luckily, he missed the car, but only by inches. In fact, the only damage done was that he hit his chin on the driveway and bit his lip. There was a little blood, and little bald spot on the underside of his chin, but neither lasted.

What did last was our understanding decision to never open our bedroom window that wide again.