Good Dog

During the week, while SweetPea makes her runs throughout town, Gomi goes with her. This means that , everyone morning, all five of us load up into the truck before the crack of dawn.
Of course, we at The Verbosery being nothing if not more than a little compulive, we have a system.

Before anyone goes out the door, Gomi gets her leash on and sits at the front door. Then SweetPea goes out. Usually, at this point, both the inside door and the security door are wide open, and a teenaged pit bull is sitting in front of a wide open door with nobody attached to the other end of her leash.

Once SweetPea gets the truck unlocked, MonkeyDo and MonkeySee proceed out the door and climb into the truck.

Yes, I am the last person out the door. Usually I'm getting my bag and my purse together, making sure I have everything, and getting my keys ready.

Meanwhile, a cute little dog is waiting patiently at the threshold, occassionally peeping at me over her shoulder as if to say "Come on, pokey, hurry up!"

Finally ready to go, I step out the door, make sure everyone else is in the truck and tell Gomi "Come on, go get in your spot."

This is her cue to go over and climb up into the back seat of the truck.

Mostly she does this part ok. Sometimes she'll kind of hang out in the front yard like she's not sure if maybe she should pee first. A lot of the times she tries climbing to the back seat by way of the front seat, even though it's folded down.

But she's getting it.

The other part of the morning ritual is that SweetPea, the Monkeys and the dog have started walking the parking lot after dropping me off. They have enough time before making the next stop that they usually walk about half a mile through the parking lot.

This morning SweetPea was planning on skipping it. The winds over the last few days have left her feeling less than stellar.

I got out of the truck and turned back to get my things and I noticed Gomi was sitting up, strained forward, ears perked with a gleam in her eye.

"Uh, SweetPea," I said. "Your dog wants to go for a walk."

And walk they did.