Hide & Seek
The super-sized black pup tilts his head and
slips his slobbery tongue smack-dab into Hailey’s open-mouth. “Gross!” Hailey says spitting and scrubbing her lips
with her shirtsleeve, “Baker no kissing. If you want to play this game with me,
you have to remember the things we learned in puppy class”.
To show he’s ready to obey, the Great Dane
pup stands at attention lowering his head looking directly into his pint-sized
owner’s innocent blue eyes.
Giving the impression of being older than five,
Hailey stands with her arm straight down at her side with her fingertips pointed
towards the ground. Slowly, moving her hand up in front of Bakers face, Hailey inches
up onto her tippy-toes so she can continue to reach her hand up over the dogs
head and says, “Baker sit!”
With a thud, Baker plops his bottom on the
floor, snaps his mouth shut, swinging his long skinny tail back and forth, scattering
the Sunday newspaper.
Next, Hailey puts her hand straight out,
with her fingers together, like a stop sign. Holding her hand in front of
Bakers wet black nose, she says, “Baker stay”.
With Baker in the sit and stay position,
Hailey zooms down the hall to hide. Crawling into the bathtub, she turns to
jerk the shower curtain closed when she’s assaulted by warm garbage-breath.
“What are you doing in here dog?” Pulling her shirt collar up over her nose,
Hailey mumbles, “I was not ready yet. Oh, come on”. With her hands on her hips,
she marches the giant puppy back into the middle of the living room. “Okay Mr.
shall we try this again?”
“Sit,”
Hailey commands as she moves her hand up in front of grinning dogs face and
over his head. Baker sits. Holding her arm straight out Hailey moves her hand
down, pointing towards the floor, and says, “Baker down”. Baker squats, sticks out his front paws, and
drops down on his tummy. His wide chocolate eyes look up at Hailey with love.
Squinting down at the dog, glaring into
his eyes, Hailey uses the stop-sign hand signal for stay and says in her best mom
voice, “Baker-stay, Baker-stay, Baker-stay!” With Baker in position, Hailey dashes into her
room getting into place. “Baker come,” Hailey yells.
Whoosh! Hailey is yanked out from under
the bed by her pant leg. Giggling and pulling her jeans back up into place;
Hailey nuzzles the soft fur of her best friend. “Good boy Baker. What a good
boy you did it. Let’s do it again.”
One time, Baker found Hailey hiding behind
the living room chair making her squeal like a baby piggy when he licked her
bare toes and another time, Baker sniffed out Hailey’s hiding place in a pile
of dirty clothes and shoved his cold nose under the back of her shirt making Hailey
scream so loud that her mother came running.
“Okay Baker, now it’s your turn to hide.
Go hide.” Facing the wall with her eyes tightly closed, Hailey starts counting,
“One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten. Ready or not here I come.”
Creeping towards the kitchen Hailey sees
Baker’s head behind the dining room curtain but his rear-end and tail are
sticking out. Hailey covers her mouth quickly to keep from laughing out-loud. Is
he really hiding or is he looking at the neighbor cat? Tiptoeing to the edge of the window, Hailey
flips the curtain open and shouts, “Got You Baker!”
Baker yelps, Hailey jumps and takes off
running lickety-split down the hall with her silly barking best friend
galloping at her heels.
