Hot Dog!

Every greyhound parent likes to think their hound is the most beautiful, charming, special and smart hound that was ever whelped. Most of us wonder what kind of idiots passed up adopting such a gem before you got to the kennel and recognized these amazing qualities.
I admit to such hubris on the part of my two babies, Bettina and Blue (and possibly even more so with their predecessor, Girly Girl). They say pride goeth before the fall (or something like that). I can attest to the fact that this is true.

On a recent Friday I took the hounds outside for our typical mid-day break. It was very sunny that day and roughly 85 degrees. Those of you in the South are saying, oh, a nice, if not coolish day. For those of us in the North, this is akin to parking next to the gates of hell and leaving your windows rolled up. It was very hot.

This being a Friday, the garbage man had come and I was returning the empty garbage can to its designated space in the garage. Bettina decided that, as my Vice President of Checking Stuff Out, she should be nearby to supervise and observe. She took up a position close to mumma while I went about my task.

The side door to the garage has a small paved square in front of it which sits in full sun almost all day. By lunch time, the blazing sun had applied itself assiduously to the square for more than 7 hours. I could feel the material of my Crocs melding with the pavement. So it was with much amazement that I watched Bettina step from the grass onto the asphalt and then carefully and daintily lay herself down on the scorching tar.

I managed to sputter out, “Uh Bettina…isn’t that too hot?” And as I bent down to test the temperature with my hand, Bettina suddenly starts shrieking as though…well…as though she were on fire. I can feel that the tar is so hot I had to remove my hand to keep from searing my first layer of skin off. Yet Bettina makes no move to remove herself from the uncomfortable situation as a normal dog might when being cooked alive. Instead she lay there, screaming.

As it appeared she had no immediate plans to get up and I was smelling an unpleasant charred meat smell, I stepped over to assist my brain surgeon. After a few tries, I managed to hoist her up to a standing position. I was certain that once she was up, she’d get the heck off the tar. Sadly, I figured incorrectly.

She stood there looking at me and whimpering. She’d pick up one paw, cry, and then set it down. She’d pick up the next paw, cry, then set it down and so on. I watched while she did this a few times and I told her to step sideways onto the grass for heaven’s sake. She must have been utterly deafened by her pain as she continued her hot dog dance, oblivious of mumma trying to shoo her onto the grass.

My Rhodes Scholar was not making the most of this learning experience, so I had to physically pick her up and carry her over to the grass, a mere 2 feet from where she had been laying and then standing. Blue had watched all this from the security of the nice cool grass. He was looking from Bettina to me and I could see clearly what he was thinking, “and you thought I was the dumb one…” And that was true. I had always thought Blue was the one who “got the looks” in our family. But Bettina’s looking more and more beautiful every day.