Don't Rain On Me

Today is a rainy spring day. It's Saturday. This rain comes after an almost full week of glorious sunshine. The weekdays were gorgeous, I enjoyed the sun through my office windows while at work. Today, my day off, the weekend it rains. That's is the joke here in the Pacific Northwest: it only rains on the weekends, and often on weekdays too. If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes. That's another phrase heard again and again. Today if you wait, it would still be raining. Louie doesn't know if it's a weekday or a weekend. He only knows there are days I leave in the morning and some days I stay with him. He also knows there's no way in hell you're going to get him to go outside when it's raining.

You'd think Louie was from some warm climate, some tropical paradise where everyday was at least 80 degrees. Then he was suddenly ripped from his home while snoozing on the beach and teleported to Alaska in the dead of winter and left outside to fend for himself. He hates the cold and the rain. But he's Pacific Northwest born and raised. Shouldn't he be used to it by now?

Louie cannot see water. He cannot see the rain falling from the sky but he knows, yes he does.

In the morning when I wake up, it's like I have a blind furry weatherman lying on my bed. If it is wet outside, Louie will not get up. He will not get up when Snorp asks to go out. He will not get up when the cats jump on him and he will not get up when I am getting ready to leave. How does he know? I think he can smell it. He can hear it. He can taste it. If you close your eyes and think about it, you can feel dampness in the air. In the spring time it's like a clean, fresh smell. You can hear the sound of the rain on the roof, or when it's windy, against the window pane. You don't need eyes to guess what the weather is like outside. You also don't need to get your ass out of bed apparently either.

So Louie's day consisted of sleeping in as long as possible. Running out the front door and up the set of steps to his grandparents house to have breakfast. Then napping on their new fluffy dog bed they got for Budde the puppy. Louie is happy to help break that new bed in. After a nap he ran outside to the closest corner of grass to pee, so fast and hard that is splashed up onto his front feet. Louie then ran back to his house for phase two of the rainy day nap. He lays down near the front door. Listening to the rain. If I open the door for him and ask him if he wants to go outside, he just turns his head and 'looks' at me: "You're kidding right?"