Mean Ol’ Scary Thing

Reyna’s been in a bit of an odd mood lately, and yesterday had some very weird moments. For one thing, she was very talkative. Not really barking at the things that normally make her bark (people near her territory, cars moving along the road, birds landing in the yard), just mumbling a lot. Random woofing for no apparent reason, low growling, occasional grumbling. And every time the humidifier I bought yesterday made any gurgling noise, she just had to comment.


I also bought this small space heater for the living room yesterday, and had it set up by 2:00. After the initial “Oooh, you’re home! With stuff! What’d you get us?” she didn’t pay any attention to the heater. Mind you, its only about 2 feet tall so it doesn’t take up much space, but it was something new, so I thought she’d check it out fairly early. Nope. Not her. She wasn’t at all interested in it. Until about 9:45. It had been running on low for about an hour, and I’d already checked it to see if the surface got hot to the touch, which it didn’t. So when she finally went to check it out, I didn’t worry too much, but I did keep an eye on her. She sniffed the top, sides, and top again, then put her face right in front of where the heat comes out. At that point, she gave it a bit of a glare, but went back to sniffing. Then licked the top. Put her face in the heat and glared at it again. Sniffed some more. And then backed away. In a hurry. After glaring at it for another moment or two, she walked back up to it and raised her paw, like she was thinking about touching/petting/thumping it. Suddenly, she backed off really fast, and started barking at it. Duncan was resting on their bed, just staring at her, and I had to stop laughing so I could calm her down. She came over and leaned against me with a pitiful look on her face, so I walked her back to the heater, told her it was okay, and touched the heater to show her it wouldn’t hurt her. She watched all of this from slightly behind me, clearly uncertain as to how smart it was to get that close to the evil heater. And then the humidifier gurgled, she woofed, started chasing her tail, and promptly forgot the heater was even there.