He was a little dog – black, of an unknown mix. He was bigger than a toy breed, but still small. Lisa, my daughter, found the stray and brought him to me for care while she tried to find his owner. Lisa did all the usual lost dog things, but nobody claimed him. She had named him Spike and as the search for his owner continued, Spike moved in.
Spike had a passion – ice cubes. He would sit by the door of the fridge and make small noises. At first I thought he was hungry and offered him food. He ignored it. As time went on and Spike continued to gaze at the door, I became quite frustrated. What did this odd little dog want? The icemaker solved it. Of its own accord, it spat out an ice cube, which it sometimes does when the box inside is full. Spike danced about with excitement, grabbed the cube and dashed off.
Of course, then whenever he would sit by the fridge and gaze up at it, I just grabbed an ice cube and gave it to him.
One day, I walked over to the window to look into the backyard, and Spike became vicious, growling fiercely at me. I knelt down to pet him, and asked him what was up. He continued to growl softly at me. I was at a loss. Spike was a sweet dog and suddenly I had become an enemy?
This continued for days. Spike growled at anyone who went to the window to look out. Looking out of the window on the back yard was common as we checked on our other dogs playing in the back yard. Spike would not leave the window. He ate there. He slept there. This dog was strange.
I solved it all one day. I had given him an ice cube, as usual, and happen to follow him out of the kitchen. Spike ran over to the large plant by the window and dropped the cube into the pot. He then sat by the plant to guard it.
Bless his heart! I was so touched by this. He was guarding a melting ice cube. It was always gone when he looked for it, so of course he had decided his stash was constantly being invaded.
I put a plastic box of ice cubes beside the plant to show him the source was endless, and refilled it often. Spike stopped growling at people who came near the window. My little paranoid stray became pretty normal after that. He even turned down ice cubes!
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Until next post 🙂