The continuing adventures of Kooper the Dim, my 7 year old Yellow Lab mix.
As we have established, Kooper loves the water. His favorite thing to do is swim. When he isn’t swimming he does his other favorite thing; he naps. Even when he’s napping, I think he is dreaming of swimming, as I see his paws twitching and moving. This story is about the midnight swim of Kooper the Dim.
On a warm summer night last year, shortly after midnight, he had to respond to the call of nature. My wife and I were sound asleep, and I get a nudge under the arm, a wet kiss on my face and other indicators that he has to go outside, now.
We are fortunate in that we live on Conesus Lake. We have a small front yard and then the lake with my dock and boats and such. While Kooper is taking care of business, I wander out onto my dock to admire the stars. Kooper, now relieved, decides to join me on the dock, only he is admiring the water.
Before I could stop him, in he went. 20 minutes later I finally get him out. I did not want to be yelling at the dog to get out of the water; I didn’t want to wake the neighbors. Lake homes tend to be close to one another, and I have good neighbors. I wanted to keep it that way.
He finally gets out and now it’s time to shake all that water off; of course, standing right next to me. I am now soaked head to toe. Next, a roll in the grass; the freshly mown grass, and now I have a grass covered wet dog, and a wet me, heading back into the house.
As soon as I open the door to the house he makes a beeline up the stairs and before I can yell out a warning, I hear a scream. This is a scream of a woman that has just been suddenly and rudely woken by a 90 pound wet, grass covered dog landing on top of her in the bed. This did not make her a happy person, and to this day, whenever I mention it, there are dark mutterings to be heard.
We both had to change our wet PJ’s, and I had to change the sheets. Kooper and I both spent the rest of the night in the doghouse.