One of these days...

For about two weeks now, two older men wearing athletic sport knit caps have been speed walking by our house. Their athletic pursuits have been driving Otto nutso. Otto hates people in any type of hats. I swear he hears them in his deep coma sleep and like clockwork at 4:30 zooms off the bed with full hackles raised and barks frantically until they pass. There is NO calming him down. When they pass the front window, Otto races into the bathroom to get rear sight of them, barking and growling all the while. When he can't see them anymore out of that window, he races upstairs to get a final more elevated view. Whew, they are gone out of sight...he strolls downstairs and leaps back into bed, lands asleep no doubt dreaming of "One of these days..." This routine has been going on every day again for about two weeks.

Dogs, like people, have routines. Every morning, when I open up the door to our garage to go out for our morning walk, Otto zooms past me and does his morning recon of the cars, their wheels and the base of the cabinets. Every morning I yell, "Otto, get over here" and once the garage has been securely checked out and when Otto is ready, Otto in slow motion approaches me, head down, head really down while I put his massive prong collar on his massive neck. Sad isn't it? For five years he has worn a prong collar and for five years he has hated it and I am pretty sure that for five years, Otto has thought to himself..."One of these days..." Too bad for him, the collar is effective. The collar helps to stop him.

When I was about 16 years old, I remember visiting my father during the summer. Dad employed a man named Joseph, who was the "housekeeper-driver-formal butler- cook all wrapped up into one nice but strange man. Joseph loved Dad, the two had been together for many years and Joseph created a sort of bizarre and entertaining formality to my father's life and to my summer visits. My father was a very VERY handsome man with no shortage of beautiful women around him at all times. Some might have wanted to cook dinner or worse, make breakfast for Dad, Joseph would have none of that. Joseph had his routine of preparing meals, serving them at precise times and preferred no one, especially not girlfriends or other such interferences ever be in the kitchen. He was a formal man who spoke King's English and always had a crisp white towel draped around his bent arm. I never understood the towel, it was never dirty, never wet and never used. The more the women tried to be of help or show off their domestic skills in hopes of attracting the exclusive eye of Dad, the more Joseph disliked them all. One can conclude that Joseph enjoyed his formal routine of being the exclusive manager of all aspects of Dad's home and life.

One late night, I went into the kitchen late after dinner hoping to find a leftover snack and found Joseph, slumped over the counter, eye glasses cocked with a short glass in his hand filled with blackberry liquor from the bottle that lived under the kitchen sink...he looked up at me and in a slurred voice said " One of these days... One of these days I'm gonna tell 'em all to kiss my ass." My sister and I still laugh about it.

I took Otto for his late afternoon walk and was speaking with my husband, vaguely paying attention. Vaguely still means two firm hands on Otto's leather leash. Around the corner, out of nowhere and suddenly within 15 feet are the two cap wearing speed walkers. I pulled back on Otto who was already in full awareness mode, I yelled to them "Otto is going to bark at you" whereupon Otto went low to the ground and lunged straight up in the air throwing me backwards on the ground with 1/2 of the prong collar still in my hands. He had broken the metal prong collar and I was on the ground and he was free. He leaped at their heads, he circled them and charged again with his chest brushing their shoulders growling the entire time. I was terrified, they were more terrified. This happened in a split second. I scrambled up and stood between the men and Otto and wrapped his leash strap around his neck. Otto was still growling. My husband yelling, "It's your hats, he hates hats." The poor older man took his hat off where upon Otto lunged again at him...fortunately to no avail. Otto didn't bite them. Everyone was plenty scared but no physical damage was done. The men kept going, I apologized profusely and we walked the rest of the block home in silence...

It was one of "these" days and it came to life...