My dog is so funny.  This morning, when all was chaos, when we were trying to get our two adults and four children to their respective learning or working environments, our dog had an agenda.  She decided she needed to go somewhere too, which is not typically the case.  Usually, she walks you to the door and then casually finds a place somewhere comfortable to sleep the day away.  Not this morning. 

My wife opened the garage door when it was time for her to leave with our two middle boys.  Briz hears the door open and waits for her chance to escape through the laundry room.  When the laundry room door (opening to the garage) opened, Briz shot through it like she saw a rabbit a mile away, and then out through the open garage door portal.  Fortunately she came right back to me when I went out to bring her back inside.  This was the first sign of her agenda for today.

When it was time for me to leave with our remaining two children, Briz made it very clear that she wanted to go with us.  So, after some consideration of my own and with a little nudging from my five year old perfect daughter, I decided maybe Brisbane should ride along.  Briz enthusiastically hopped in the car and off we went to their schools. 

Briz is actually a great passenger, looking out the window constantly, that is if she’s not dangling her head out the window with her chops flapping in the breeze.  She’s like a Wal-Mart greeter to all bystanders, giving them a warm hello bark.  It’s really “funny” when she spots a squirrel or some other animal jet across the road and yelps frantically in my ear; this happened this morning.  Briz says goodbye to the kids when I drop them off at their schools, always willing to give a hug in return to their hugs as a final gesture.  The kids like it, so I like it.  This was certainly part of her agenda today.

I went back home to drop her off and pick up my gear before I headed to the office.  While listening to Michael Jackson’s She’s Out Of My Life, I backed my car into my garage, then I turned off the car and closed the garage door.  Briz was curiously watching me do all of this, I could tell because her eyes were fixed on me the entire time like she had something to tell me but couldn’t, because she doesn’t speak English, she only speaks Greek.  I opened my door and exited my van and then encouraged her to follow me.  She didn’t move.  I coaxed her a little more with more words, but to no avail.  She wasn’t going to move.  I went around the other side and opened her door, thinking she didn’t want to cross the seats.  Nope!  The only movement she made was over to my driver’s seat where she sat down again, deliberately turned her head and stared out the window, as if she enjoyed the view of the closed garage door three feet in front of her nose.  I said, “Fine, be that way!”  I walked into the house leaving the car door open as well as the laundry room door thinking she will surely follow me into the house.

I gathered my gear, toyed around in the kitchen for a few minutes, used the bathroom one final time, checked the doors to be sure they were locked, and whatever else I needed to do to complete my final departure checklist.  After about ten minutes it dawned on me that Briz had still not come inside.  Get this, I went out to the car and found her, still, in the driver’s seat, just sitting there as patiently as you would expect an eighty year old woman to be waiting for her bus at her bus stop. 

“Briz!  What are you doing silly?”, I asked her.  She just looked at me, with those big brown puppy dog eyes.  I knew what she wanted, she wanted to go with me to wherever I was going.  “Briz, you gotta go inside darling.” 

She looked out the front window again, then back at me, then out the window again, then back at me.  Finally, understanding now her agenda is not going to happen, looking defeated and sad, she staggered over the passenger side seat, climbed out the door of the van, grazed me as she passed by, then into house.  I followed her in and got into the kitchen just in time to see her plop to the floor in today’s chosen spot.  I admit, I’m a softy; so I plopped down at the kitchen table next to her and worked from the house on my laptop for a couple of hours just to keep her company.   Hey, she just wants to be with me; I can’t blame her for that.  In consolation, maybe I’ll give her an extra long walk today.

She’s a funny dog.