"Mickey and the Wailers"

This morning I was awakened by the sound of my small dogs howling. There is someone at my door and true to habit they are letting me know about this invader of our space. Sometimes I wonder what this must sound like from outside the house, six dogs howling as if they were running from the hounds of hell is quite a reception for the mailman, or anyone else who finds themselves in the position of knocking on my door. We have tried to curb this behavior but it is proving impossible as these little guys seem to think the way to pay us back for rescuing them is to protect our home and our belongings from anyone who dares to knock on our door.

We did have it under control at one time, then along came Mickey the Chihuahua, our little rescue from Mexico. Apparently as far as his little Mexican mind is concerned everyone that comes to our door must be perceived as a danger to us all and he must howl to let them know this house is guarded by a squadron of small rescued dogs who take guarding their home seriously! Mickey usually starts the howler alarm but the others are just as quick to chime in. My Husband now calls the small dogs in our pack "Mickey and the Wailers."

So as I was saying, I was rudely awakened by Mickey and the Wailers, and came downstairs to find a very startled mailman at my door with a package. I signed for the package and as soon as I closed the door the howling stopped immediately, apparently whatever danger the mail man might have been I had taken care of it by closing the door and returning to the living room in one piece. Ah silence! But not for long.

It's payday but nobody has left the house yet to go get anything and we are out of cream and milk. My husband wonderful man that he is brings me a coffee, but when the dogs hear his work truck pull into the drive they think the evil mailman has returned and the howling starts again. I go out and grab my coffee from my husband on the front porch and he says "I see that Mickey and the Wailers" are in fine form today." I scowl at him. "Sure it's funny when you're not the one that has to try to calm them down!" I say. But my husband is not the one who now has to deal with six overly excited ankle biters. In fact he never has to deal with this problem because it is something the dogs only do when I am home alone with them. In their brains when Dad is home no one would dare mess with their Mom, but when Dad's away...Mom must be protected from everything!

Shortly Dad will be back with milk and cream, so that I can sustain my coffee habit throughout the rest of the day, and when they hear that truck pull into the drive, our ears will be assaulted by the high pitched tones of "Mickey and the Wailers" once again. We're okay with that, we can handle it, as long as Mickey doesn't start demanding pay for each performance.