HanktheDog Blog

I somehow feel it coming on, even before Mike says, "Jason's coming today." When he says it, though, I rush to the French doors and use my snout to push aside the curtains, checking to see if he's coming up the walkway. Not yet. Calm down. Not yet.

So I lie down again, though the feeling builds. I doze by the door, waiting so long that I forget that I'm waiting ... or what I'm waiting for. Yet some part of me knows because I can feel it building still - some nameless shiver of excitement buried under the the half-closed, bloodshot eyes of a recumbent hound.

Then, just when the feeling starts to melt away, I hear it. Faintly. A car drives up. Who is it? A car door slams and my head rises. Then there are voices, low at first, then louder, approaching. I give a low woof. Then I rise, sure that they're ascending onto the porch. And they are! I bark. Alarm! Someone on the porch! Intruders!

"Hank!" he says, "it's me!" And so it is! My packmate Jason, grown pup of Molly and Mike, has arrived with friends. I pant hard and wag and wait for him to open the door. And when he does, that feeling that had been building all afternoon finally erupts. It takes me over from head to paw. I tuck my hind quarters and gallop madly away from Jason, circling around the dining room table, back through the chairs, and then, picking up speed I butt-tuck toward Jason. I nearly run him over but turn sharply in the other direction and butt-tuck into the hallway. The whole house bursts with my excitement that JASON IS HOME!!!

"Calm down, Hank," he says. But I won't! My body must express this Labrador joy, must sing this wild Labrador song. I must run in circles and figure eights, around furniture, up on the sofa and down again, turning up rugs and knocking over wooden chairs. Butt-tucking is the crazy, barely controlled music of my heart. I am a massive, lumbering Labrador no more. I am the living spirit of holiday happiness, more festive than the brightly lit tree, more merry than Christmas carols. Jason is home! Home! Home!