I know why God invented the muzzle

Okay, so maybe it wasn't God necessarily, but who ever it was had a brilliant idea. And this morning, I wish I had two of them...

Now, let me preface this by saying I love my dogs. Jackie and Baylee are like my kids. I don't have any two-legged children but I do have my critters. And I know I couldn't live without them.


However, I could have lived without the heart attack I had this morning in the shower.

I just had managed to drag myself out of our super-soft fluffy bed (we just got one of those featherbed toppers to put on it this week. It's wonderful. It's like sleeping on clouds - I highly recommend it to all.) and gotten myself into a nice hot shower to force myself to wake up.

I get good and soapy when I hear my two mutts starting to go absolutely insane in the other room. There's loud barking and growling - but then I hear all sorts of moaning and whining all interspersed with the crazy barking and loud yelping. I serious thought someone was trying to get in or deliver something. I waited for the doorbell - but it never came.

So then I'm thinking maybe the landlord's got someone coming over to clean out the gutters or was going to have someone come in to do some work... but I can't hear anything except the extremely loud racket the dogs are making. So I quickly rinse, shut off the shower throw a towel on my hair and try to slip into a flannel bathrobe - no easy task when you're dripping wet. Flannel loves to cling to wet skin.

I fumble to find my glasses and run into the living room to look out the windows ... and low and behold, what do I see? It can't be... There's NOTHING out there. Nada. No people. No landlord. (Not that the landlord's not a person...) No one in the street, no one across the street, not even a garbage truck or service vehicle nearby.

I don't get it! You'd think a small army had come into the yard and camped out with the noise these two small dogs produced. But there's nothing out there.

So I'm fuming at this point, wondering how they can pull me away from my shower without letting me condition my hair for NOTHING. Ahhhhhhhhh...

So I go about getting ready and it all starts up again. I wrap up again and get out there - this time I've managed to get my contacts in - just in time to see the culprit. The whole reason for the nutsy behavior. There he was in all his splendor - a tiny little furry squirrel. No fierce monster or neighborhood dog run loose. Nope. It was a scrawny little squirrel.

I wanted to beat those two dogs within a inch of their lives. I could have - but didn't. I simply closed all the blinds and went on to get ready. But this is when I think about how great a muzzle would be. One for each. No barking, no interrupted shower and no freaking out over little Mr. Squirrly Pants.