Stumped

It starts out with dog-blogging, and then it gets weird.

Rufus & I are pretty schedule-oriented. He seems to like steady routines, to the point at which he hasn’t figured out yet that weekends are the time to sleep in. I’m hoping he’ll learn.

Typically, we get up around 5am, and I take him outside shortly after. I tend to forget to grab the flashlight, so I just turn an outside light on by the back door, and let my eyes adjust as we head around the corner of the house where, last May, a tree came down and nearly took out a corner of my house. I sawed a chunk of it down, but a tall stump remains, as does one significant log. Rufus considers that area his bathroom, and that’s worked out fine so far.

This morning, I led him over there, and he kept sniffing at the stump and tugging slightly on his leash. He wasn’t out of control, so I figured he was spooked by a noise. I led him to the other corner of the yard, and he took care of business.

Around 7:30am, I took him out for his second bathroom break. He once again focused on that stump, but this time it was daylight.

Hmm. Maybe I can pull a “CSI” and increase the resolution . . .

Yep! That’s what I thought: Rocky Raccoon is making his bed in that treestump. Better take Rufus back inside, then investigate further:

Rocky’s awfully darned cute, too! Why, I’m just lucky he and Rufus have some sort of non-aggression pact going, because this could’ve gotten pretty chaotic in the pre-dawn darkness. Wait — what’s that, Rocky?

Buy you plush squeaky toys?

As you command . . .

(UPDATE! Rocky was still here when I got home in the evening! I tossed some rocks at the side of the stump to scare him into leaving, but he was barely responsive. I lobbed one in, and he just flexed a paw, so it’s pretty obvious to me what happened: he was mortally wounded after crash-landing here from another world and needs to bestow a power ring that will enable its bearer to defend this portion of the universe from all manner of threats. Now the real question is, who’s the ring intended for: me, Amy, or Rufus?)