Back when I was a kid, my family had a dog named Brown. Brown had been a stray dog, but one day decided that my Mom’s flower box would be her new bed. During the day, she’d hang out in the backyard of our house and play with us kids. Within a few weeks, we all fell in love with her and decided to adopt her.

For a dog, Brown was a bit of a strange bird (pun entirely intended). For example, she absolutely loved to eat tissues! She would often poke her nose into your pockets just to steal a tissue and indulge in this delicacy! What a weirdo!

She had other quirks as well. For instance, she had a mortal terror of being indoors. During the first year that we owned her, we would often try to bring her into the house during rainy or snowy weather; but, this would set her into an outright panic. We tried to move her into the basement once during a particularly bad snowstorm. She barked incessantly throughout the entire night, and nobody got any sleep. After that episode, my Dad built her a small protective enclosure inside of the garage.

So, that became Brown’s life. During the day, she’d spend most of her time leashed to a tree in the yard alongside our house. At night or during bad weather, she’d hang out in the garage. Life was good!

When I was about 10 years old, we decided to watch the 4th of July fireworks in downtown Dayton. I’m sure we all enjoyed the show, although I don’t really remember any of the specific details, to be honest. What I do remember is that, roughly 30 minutes after we got home, my Dad suddenly realized that we had accidentally left Brown in the side yard during the fireworks!

We rushed outside to check on her but were disheartened to discover that she was gone! The side yard was empty, and there was no sign of Brown!

At least, that’s how it appeared at first. Upon further examination, my Dad noticed that her rope stretched from the tree over to one of the basement windows. The window was closed tightly, yet Brown’s rope appeared to be pinched underneath it. It was too dark to see anything else from outside!

So, we rushed down into the basement. To our amazement, Brown was sitting on top of the storage shelf that was underneath the window. She didn’t bark, but her eyes said: “Please get me down from here, and never speak of this ever again.”. So, that’s exactly what we did! (Well, until now, at least)

To this day, my family still cannot explain how Brown managed to get into the basement. That window was always locked, and it would require a lot of effort to force it open from the outside. Additionally, the window was not damaged whatsoever. It was as if somebody had opened the window from inside the house, convinced Brown to go in, and closed the window behind her. We’re also not sure how she managed to push the clutter off of the shelf without knocking the entire shelf over. Why does this matter? Well, let’s just say that her rope was not long enough to reach the basement floor and leave it at that.

Generally speaking, I don’t believe in magic. But, I’ll make an exception in this case.

So yeah: that’s the story of The Magical Pupper! 🐶