Quirky, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside a Dog

My daughter Brittany, 13, shared the couch with our quirky Jack Russell Terrier, Maxx, and my eleven-year-old son, Chad, was upstairs in his room as I rounded the corner to the kitchen to prepare dinner. I spent the next half-hour scurrying between the living room, dining room and kitchen---multi-tasking, as usual. Our townhome was very small, like a two story shoebox. I could literally sneeze from the patio door in the dining room and it could almost hit the front door in the living room---so small that I couldn't help but be aware of whenever someone came in or out of the house.

When I was ready to rest my feet a spell, I came into the living room and noticed Maxx had vacated the couch. I plopped down and started chatting with Brittany, expecting Maxx to sidle up to me, like he usually does. After a short while, I went upstairs to peek-in on Chad and I noticed that Maxx was conspicuously absent from Chad's room, so I checked Brit's room and he wasn't there, either. I asked both kids if they had seen Maxx and neither of them had seen him since he had left their respective company. We all then turned the house upside-down and called out to him, to no avail.

Since Maxx was a short-legged Jack Russell, he could hide almost anywhere. He had a habit of enjoying the cool of the bathtub and we would sometimes stumble upon him in there. But, not this time. He wasn't in any of the closets, either, nor under or behind any furniture. We were completely mystified. I asked if anyone had opened the front door and nobody had. I would have known anyway, but, I had to ask. I asked if they were playing a trick on me and they sincerely denied it and I believed them.

With that settled, I went outside and looked up-and-down our short street while calling out his name. I looked in the small field across from our townhome. No sign of him. I wasn't outside more than five minutes when Chad came outside, pointing at my pickup truck. "There he is, Dad. He's in the truck!" When I got up to my truck, I looked inside and saw Maxx in the driver's seat, curled up and snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug. Chad had noticed him while looking out his bedroom window to check on my progress.

To this day, my now grown kids deny any shennanigans on their part, even though they would love to be able to take credit for a successful prank on their Old Man.

Maxx had always loved riding with me and he always sat upright on my left leg while resting his head on my arm when he wasn't sticking his head out the window. I often took him to work with me when my job had me working primarily out of my truck. Sometimes Maxx was reluctant to leave the truck when we came home and other times he would whine until I took him out to the truck. But, how he managed to get into his favorite place that day is still a mystery to me and my kids. It's as if he had willed himself there. The truck had even been locked and the windows were up.

Winston Churchill once famously referred to Russia as "...a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." He would have loved Maxx.