The time is 8:15pm on a Monday night, and the temperature outside is a perfect 70 degrees, when I decide to take a jog with Coda (my Schipperke).  I’ve decided that he is going to build up his endurance/distance jogging along with me.  Being an already-active pup, he’s ahead of me.  All goes well until we come to a crossroads, and there is a car stopping at the stop sign to my right.  Of COURSE, this is the time that the so-far-well-behaved dog decides he must run after a rabbit, which also means he is cutting in front of me with his leash!  I begin to trip, and catch myself, but not before pulling a wanna-be dance routine involving the leash, my jumping on each leg, a half-spin, and the resulting laughter from the car stopped to my right.  I’m pretty sure that Coda did that on purpose, just for a laugh.  I totally flashbacked to that fateful Friday night a few weeks ago…you can go read that for yourself, though.

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The time is now 4:35am, and I have haphazardly dragged myself out of bed so that I can get ready for my first workouts of the day.  The dog decides, uncharacteristically, to wake up along with me and ask to be let outside.  Of course, I sleepily oblige.  In the midst of dressing myself and packing my bag with clothes/necessities, I hear Coda begin to bark.  Normally, when he’s first let out in the morning, he merely does his business, and returns to the door for his breakfast, so this barking is odd behavior.  (ONLY at this point, though…during the day, he’s a barking machine, making sure that NO BIRDS and NO SQUIRRELS enter his domain!) At this point, I know people won’t be happy to hear a yippy dog so early in the morning, so I rush out to retrieve him.  He is quite occupied, switching between barking up a tree and growling at something on the ground.  It’s too dark for me to make out what he is circling, so I slowly walk up to him and command him to sit (which he does…good boy). Then, out of my peripheral vision, I glance the large pair of teeth!  After jumping out of my skin, I take a closer look and see what appears to me a small possum, lying motionless on the ground, but with all teeth bared.  THOSE THINGS LOOK F*CKIN’ FREAKY!!!!!!!!!!  There’s no WAY I’m finding out whether or not that thing’s dead or “playing possum”!  I grab the dog and rush inside.  Is it extremely sad that I ran like a little wimp from a small (albeit largely teethed) rodent of an animal???