Driving Mr. Ernie

We finished our early morning walk uneventfully.

Getting ready to return inside Ernie stopped, looked at me and sat down. That’s his way of talking. In this case I wasn’t sure what he wanted since we had just done our jaunt.

My first reaction was to give him a second go, but he took a few steps and re-seated himself on the concrete.

Maybe he is extra thirsty from the 100+degree heat, I thought? Having a special dog-water bottle in the truck that he knows about I opened the right door to get it: he jumped in front of me.

He sat down on the driver’s side and gave me the stare. Water wasn’t the focus of his attention; a ride in the truck seemed to be.

At seven o’clock in the morning? It would be a first.

I decided to accommodate that by retrieving his blanky from inside the shack and placing it on the passenger’s seat: he briefly took his place there. When I started the engine he came back over the console, sat in my lap and gave me a couple wet ones.

I guess that meant I was doing okay so far. What next, where to Boss?

Well, Ernie’s most favorite short ride is to the dumps, AKA the transfer station. Twice a week he gets a couple mini dog biscuits through the truck’s window from a kind hand as we drop off our trash and recyclables; so that’s where we went. [Note that today they are closed.]

Driving very slowly the couple short miles Ernie savored the ride with the AC blowing in his face. He was very animatedly happy. And I got a few more busses.

As we turned around at the closed gate I explained to him that there wouldn’t be any treats today; he would have to wait until tomorrow. That didn’t faze him.

Returning home I laughed and continued to believe that my dog has to have a person inside him.

How else could I have been schmoozed into Driving Mr. Ernie?