Of Thanksgiving and tiny dog Thunderdome

A rare scene: Layla and Luka sitting quietly and not exhausting me.

It dawned on me this morning: Thanksgiving is next week.

Ugh … I seriously thought I had another week to get everything wrangled before the feast.

Fortunately, I have some of our traditional ingredients pre-ordered and the combination convection oven/air fryer is all dialed in for roasting the turkey breast.

I just haven’t come to terms with cooking that much food and putting up with The Weed all day as he mocks singers performing during the parade, watches entirely too much football, complains about how hungry he is, and generally gets in my way in the kitchen.

Our holidays are usually pretty quiet. The Weed. Me. The dogs.

Which is nice considering he has been traveling a lot for work and I’ve been single dog parenting on the homefront. It sounds ridiculous but, for me, single dog parenting is exhausting, especially when living with two super energetic little beasts.

When The Weed was away last week attending a conference in Las Vegas, there were 2 a.m. walks because either Luka or Layla couldn’t sleep, and we all had to go outside to sniff every leaf on the ground or growl and bark into the darkness.

Additionally, the dogs had to play ball at least five times a day or the house would have been destroyed by their rampant zoomies and fighting over toys.

In hopes of channeling this energy, I took them to the nearby park and threw more balls as they wrestled them away from one another, causing Layla to run back to me rumbling in her best Wookie speak about how Luka had wronged her. Note: I’m not exaggerating when I say Layla speaks Wookie. I’ll try to get it on camera someday. She doesn’t hide her feelings well and often expresses herself like an annoyed Chewbacca.

By the end of the week, they finally calmed down enough so that we could watch Glen Powell and that stupid tornado movie. It was OK. The best part, for some reason Luka and Layla watched most of it with me. I’d like to think Glen Powell had something to do with that. He’s rather easy on the eyes.  

Late night walks and Wookie speak aside, Luka and Layla are mostly solid little pups.

Yesterday, we were walking along the Boulder Creek Trail together when I noticed three white-tailed deer grazing in a pasture across from us. As I stopped to take a picture, the dogs sat by my legs and watched the deer without making a sound.

No barks. No whines. No proclamations of stranger danger!

It left me wondering who took my crazed beasts and replaced them with some well-behaved dogs.

Then, almost on cue, one of the deer raised its head and looked at us. The movement caused Luka to start jumping up and down like an overstimulated toddler and Layla to let go with a string of Wookie speak.

So long quiet encounter with nature. Welcome back tiny dog Thunderdome.