Stranger Than Fiction

I have a funny story to relate about this morning's walk. In the morning I get up, feed the dogs a few kibbles, put on a hat and coat and head out the door. I also often wear sunglasses because if it's not cloudy the sun is up and shining brightly.

As we head down the now over grown paths of bushes and trees, often I must push the low hanging branches out of the way to get by. Well, today Leeloo happened to be trotting toward me as I was bent double to get under the thorny fingers of some bushes and she stopped to stare.

Now, you may not know this about me but I love to freak the dogs out. It just tickles me to get them all riled up about something stupid. If they're sleeping I bug them with 'Whos that? Who's there?" and they go from a dead sleep to high alert in 1.2 seconds. Sometimes I put hair accessories on them or stick tape to their noses, tie a string around their tail or cover them with a blanket so they can't see. Cruel I know but it's cute to watch them figure out the problems. It never hurts them and it teaches them to not freak out plus there's the added bonus of amusing me. Often they get the joke because when they remove the tape or string or blanket I praise them and they get all goofy.

So today, when Leeloo stopped in consternation while I was bent over and emerging from the bushes I froze and gave her the challenge stance. You know the one, you fake a little toward them and then stop. She looked at me with bright curious eyes but I could see the doubt crawling in. I didn't say anything, I just ducked a little to the side and then started toward her and stopped again.

She definitely knew something was not right. Who *are* you? Of course, we have been on this walk dozens of times and the only person ever with them is me so it's not like she couldn't cast back to previous walks and go, "I know it's you Mommy. Duh." Nope. This time she stood stock still, practically vibrating with concern. Archer, who up until this point had been ignoring the exchange looked at me, looked at Leeloo and thought "Leeloo is concerned so I should be too." So he started the worry face and braced stance.

I hopped toward them and raised my hands. Leeloo's eyes bugged out of her head, she did an immediate about face and took off. She didn't even wait to see if Archer was following (which of course he was), she just shot as fast as she could down the path. I have never seen her move so fast.

She must have passed Raimi on the way because he came up the path a moment later to see what the Big Damn Deal was and although I froze into the 'boo stance' for him he just barrelled toward me and leaped about happily, "You're playing Mommy! I love you!" Bounce bounce bounce.

A few seconds later Leeloo galloped back up the path with Archer close behind and when she saw Raimi 'talking' to the Stranger Danger she came up to me and just had a fit of the Happies. "Oh! It's YOU! I knew that." She was wagging, smiling, leaping, playing, biting ... anything she could think of to convince me she knew the whole time that I was just playing.

So that is Leeloo's blonde moment. We all have those moments and I know I shouldn't tease them so badly but when they offer the opportunity on a platter it's really hard to resist!