Disaster Narrowly Averted

The dogs were running at break neck speed to beat the band. I was walking up to the barn. When they got to my side, they went to put on the brakes, which ordinarily would have stopped them on a dime.

Unbeknownst to my enthusiastic canine companions however, the normally soft mud gravel mix in front of the barn, being hidden from the warmth of the rising sun by the shadow of the barn, was still frozen into a solid icy slab, and so was devoid utterly of any meaningful traction.

Both dogs went immediately into a frightening high-speed out of control slide with legs and paws and claws flailing and scratching and grabbing while they went twisting and spinning and flying directly toward what seemed like an inevitable pile-up collision of catastrophic proportions against the side of the barn.

The larger dog, Bo, no doubt due to his greater mass, was fortunate enough to gain enough purchase with the ground during his somewhat undignified sprawling tumble, to stop just before colliding with the one foot high fence bordering the flower bed in front of the barn wall, albeit he was turned around facing butt-backwards.

Our smaller, lighter Boxer dog, Miss Money Penny was less fortunate. She was not going to stop before crashing into the before mentioned fence, as Bo did. However, she has grace, agility, athleticism and youth on her side. Just before suffering a nasty collision with the fence, Penny initiates this jumping maneuver, which launches her into the air.

The result is that she flies over the fence instead of smashing into it. Nicely done I am thinking, but it still looks like there is an unfriendly impact with the barn wall in her immediate future.

Not so I see, being back on her feet after her landing, now inside the flower bed, she has all of the traction she needs to effect the quick stop she had intended no doubt to do all along. She hops out of the flowerbed, rejoins Bo, disaster narrowly averted, tails wagging, they circle around me and seem to be saying, "Meant to do that."

I smile, there is never a dull moment at Green Acres. The simple pleasures are the best. I walk into the barn. The dogs are looking around. They must be thinking, "Did anybody see us?"

Dogs, embarrassed? Naaah!