Echo the Buffalo

This morning at 4:00 am, my dog Echo barked one time.  I groggily woke up and told myself it was just part of whatever dream I was having.  At 4:06 she barked again, and again I convinced myself that my dreamland must be full of barking dogs (although anyone who knows me at all could tell you that would be more of a nightmare for me - barking dogs, shedding hair, licking you and putting cold wet noses on you...gross).  I pulled a pillow back over my head and tried to pretend it was all just a dream.  At 4:16 she barked a third time.  This time I knew it wasn't in my head and that I was going to have to get out of bed into the chilly, winter morning air and let her outside.

I rolled the blanket back and walked out to her kennel with my eyes half closed, because everybody knows that if you squint while you get up to do something in the middle of the night it is easier to go back to sleep when you climb back into bed...right?  She went outside and did her business.  I called her back in and made the executive decision to just leave her out of her cage since it was almost morning anyway (yes, almost morning - all of you who get up at at four or five every day just need to face the fact that it is still night!).  With my half-closed eyes, I stumbled back into the warmth of my bed.

On the edge of sleep, I hear a loud noise.  It is the noise a person makes when they stumble at the top of the stairs and spastically roll all the way down to the bottom.  That deep collection of thumping booms that is made by flailing arms and legs as they flop and roll down wooden steps is very distinct, and that's the noise my dog Echo was making while she excitedly ran up and down the steps.  It was the sound of a herd of buffalo running through my house.  It happened once and I thought, "Okay, she's where she wants to be now and it won't happen again."  It happened twice and I thought, "Maybe she left something that she needed upstairs and just went to get it. " It happened three times and I thought, "I'm going to tie her feet together so she can never run again (I can be grumpy when I am awakened early in the morning)!"

With eyes half closed, careful to keep in whatever sleep still remained in there, I got up and put her back in her kennel.  As I drifted back to sleep, I think I dreamed of hunting buffalo...