My dumb dog Ralph

My dearest dog Ralph has a couple of little quirks.  He watches TV and barks at any animal that might display, he chews on his front paws and he tries to attack the sump pump.  For those of you who don't live in really wet areas of NY or the country a sump pump is a device in our basement that pumps water out of our house... it is hard to explain so just imagine in a secret corner of our basement there is a hole, with a machine in it... when it fills up with water, the sump pump turns on and the water gets pushed out of our house.

Whenever anyone would even open the door to the basement he would run down as fast as possible, tripping people along the way if he had to, just to get to that sump pump.  He will sit there in the dark growling at it until it turns on and then he would bark like crazy.  Really it is pretty weird, but whatever.  

There have been times that I couldn't find Ralph only to realize I had quickly opened the basement door to throw down some dirty laundry or set some food storage on the stairs to take down later, and he must have run down there in that short amount of time, he is that fast!  I would search the house then finally yell down the stairs for him to come up and voila he was there.  

One day I couldn't find him anywhere.  It was after the kids went to bed so I made sure I hadn't locked him in their rooms, I checked outside (which was unlikely because he only likes it outside if I am out there too) but nope he wasn't anywhere.  I even checked downstairs to see if he was at the sump pump... I quickly glanced in the storage room to see if he was growling in his usual spot, but nope.  Hmmmm.  I went to look outside again and causually said to Danny, really half joking. "go and make sure he didn't jump into the sump pump this time"

Well he did, that dumb dog.  Not sure if he slipped or what.  He didn't even make a sound when I went down there to check, I didn't even think about looking INSIDE the sump pump.  Oh my.  I am glad he is ok, and so far he seems to have learned from his accident.  He has been to the basement since :)