necturus

We are all here in upstate New York: my brother, my nephew, my friend M, my father, and I. I am camped out in the living room with Loki, who seems to have spent most of the night exploring my father's house and growling at things. He kept coming back to me and snorting, so my night's sleep was intermittent. It's the return of Hyperdog. I had forgotten how much Loki loves exploring new worlds and new civilizations.

But now that it's morning and I'm awake, he's back under his blanket, quiet as a mouse.

Mouse. That's probably the problem; this house has mice. Mice are the ultimate laser pointer as far as Loki is concerned, and they're nocturnal, which means I shouldn't expect much sleep tomorrow night, either.

I'm more amused than annoyed, though.

...I discover how to get Loki to go outside in the rain.

This min-pin is very smart, very stubborn, and hates rain. He'll come to the threshold of the open door and refuse to go through it. The more I coax him, the more he backs up into the house.

This morning I tried my Hurricane Irene tactic: carry him to the car and drive him to the Route 128 underpass on Central Avenue. It never rains under Route 128, and he'll get out and walk around a bit. But this method is of limited practical application.

Tonight I took the smoke detector off the wall, brought it to the door, and held it outside. Loki hates the smoke detector and one of his fondest desires is to kill it. He followed it -- and me, since I had it in my hand -- all the way to the street. I then slipped the smoke detector into the pocket of my trenchcoat. He walked with me down to the corner, did his business, and followed me back to the house. I then took the smoke detector out of my pocket, put it on the floor, and let him have at it for a while. It's too big for him to bite and impervious to his claws, so after a few minutes he backed up and let loose a flood of high-pitched barking, whereupon I scooped up the detector and returned it to its mount on the wall. Mission accomplished.

Now I'm sitting on the couch and getting snorted at.