The petsitters just emailed me this photo of Dax at the dog park. You may note a certain...arrrroooooo?...quality about his doofy little face today.

This is because he probably senses I may need to kill him this evening.

Come backward, gentle reader, on a journey to hours gone by. Hours like, say, 4:00 am. This morning.

Out here in the glorious land touched by the sun, it is full-on spring, and the not-wild, not-domesticated tree-and-bush-dwelling critters are perchance doing what it is they do in the spring.

That is to say, they are fucking.

Last night--or, more accurately, very early this bloody morning--two raccoons apparently decided to get amorous on top of my back patio gazebo-ish thing. Which is covered in some clear plastic (rainproofing for those seven days a year it sprinkled). 

Now, even without the benefit of overhead amplification via plastic roofing, two amorous raccoons doing their mating ritual sound like a pile of rabid weasels, angry chihuahuas, pissed off cats, and a deeply twisted Donald Duck, all thrown in a blender on a random speed like, say, "Ice Crush."

Add to that their rough-and-tumble *run run thump* I Vant You! / Hisssssssssssssssss! You Can't Haf Me! / *scramble scramble thump* I Really Vant You! / Hisssssssss bark-bark-bark Not Yet, My Love! routine--which, I'm not saying lasts for twenty-five minutes or more, but yeah, maybe it does--and you have a whole hell of a lot of noise already. Like moving guys in the apartment overhead, if the apartment overhead is also infested by giant mutant rats, and they are attacking the moving guys.

So there was that noise.

Which initially awoke me from what had been a fine, well-deserved, half-a-bottle-of-red-topped-with-a-Maker's-Mark-chaser sleep, thank you little black-masked bastards very much.

But then, within seconds, there was also the sound of...FIENDHOUND.

To say Dax has a high prey drive is like saying the Pope has a high pray drive. To say Dax goes blindly, disturbingly psychotic when he encounters any form of Not-Dog is to say that Jeffrey Dahmer might have gotten a bit peckish when he encountered young drifters. 

Before my eyes were even open--before I had any notion of the border between asleep and awake--Dax had gone all Incredible Hulk on us. (Mr. Remedy, who sleeps wearing considerably more than I do, was first on the scene).

 AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR! AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

(If I could run all those together for effect, and crank up the font to 200, I might be able to begin to convey the seemingly impossible stream of uninterrupted, no-breathing-in-between crazed animal noise, and the night-shattering decibels it achieved.)

Here I will abbreviate the next two hours. We wrestled him indoors and closed the door to the back patio (where the *thump* Ahhhh, my love, I have you! *skitter skitter skitter thump thump*  Yes, oh yes, you do! But not for long! continued unabated).

We attempted to calm and comfort our dog, whose everyday dozing, sweet persona had utterly fled, chased out by the emergence of his very own inner Ozzy Ozborne-with-a-Bat.

We tried everything we know.

No dice.

Defeated (it was now 4:30 am) we locked him in a different part of the house.

AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!AWRORORWOROWRORRROWROWRROWRORWWRROWR!

Row! Row row row!

Awww row row!

scratch scratch scratch scratch (Original 1929 doors. Gah.)

whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine! whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!

I went back to bed and stewed and failed to sleep due to the yapping, whining, crying, yowling, rrrowring, and finally conceded defeat at 5:30.

I left the house at 6:30. Dax was still frothing and manic.

I got an email from Mr. Remedy at 8:00, saying Dax was still  (and here I quote) "batshit insane."

An hour ago, he wrote to tell me the housekeeper (don't judge!) called him, concerned, because Dax has been in the back yard, staring up at where the two fucking raccoons were twelve hours ago, still barking his head off.

And so, you see, despite the fact that he may look sweet and confused and rather contrite in the photo the dogsitter sent...no.

I'm afraid my dog may have just snapped. Possibly for good.

I'm afraid I may need to commit canicide.

Because I WILL sleep tonight.

Amorous neighborhood bushytails be damned.

(Would it be wrong to give Dax a couple of White Russians? He's already had some, albeit not in a planned way, over the years...)