An Amazing Dog Post that has nothing to do with alcohol

Both of my border collies are desperately afraid of thunderstorms.  I use them as my weather men.  The sky can be clear, but if they rush into the garage at first sign of an open door and refuse to come out, there's a storm on its way.  Today I walked into the kitchen.  The back door was open and Henry (dog) stood just inside the door, giving me his best you-won't even-know-I'm-inside look.  I shooed him out into the garage and yelled at my 5 year old son for not closing the back door.

My husband walked into the kitchen and was doing something.  The back door rattled a bit, he turned around.  "Henry's just lying against the door, there's a storm coming," I said.  Then the knob (we have those elongated oval ones) started to rattle.

"He's trying to open the door," my husband said.  "No way," I replied. We waited.  The knob rattling increased.  Ten seconds later, the door opened, then shut.  Clearly, the dog's weight wasn't right.  Next try, the door swung open and Henry walked in, sat at heel*, and silently implored me for permission.

"Well, that certainly changes things," commented my husband.  It was a good shared laugh.  The dog stayed in.




*Before you start to think we're militant dog trainers who trained the dog to do this, we are entirely too lazy.  The dog came from a rescue knowing Heel.  At first I thought he also may have come with invisible opposable thumbs.   Mystery solved: he does it with his mouth-my husband saw him.  Apparently he now has it down.  Tomorrow I'm going to test if he now comes in all the time he can get to the back door to the house, or if he only tries to come in during thunder storms.  I'm going to have to video this-no one will believe me.