Lauren and I took several dogs for a hike to the waterfall and a lovely picnic. Saga had a scene to film the next day, and we did not want him to get too tired on the long hike, so we left him home, but promised to take him for a walk when we got back. It was one of those perfect spring days where time seems to slow down, and we lounged in the sun, ate sandwiches, and threw sticks into the swimming hole for Flint. A few hours later we trekked home.
We were at the top of the hill, about a thousand feet from our house, when we began to hear a strange noise. An airplane? No. A car? No. We started walking a little more quickly, and with each step the sound grew louder. We could not identify it, but we knew it was wrong, and we knew it was coming from the house. We were running now, breathless. We burst out of the woods and stopped short. What we saw did not make any more sense than what we had heard—something was pouring out of the cracks between the siding on the second story of our house, crashing to the earth. Water?? We ran to the front door and jerked it open.
Saga is field-bred Golden Retriever—he has swum in squalls in the Pacific, across the Willamette, and the Columbia. He lives to swim! But there, in our living room, he perched on top of our couch as the surrounding waters quickly rose. The ceiling was raining, hard, a river flowed down the stairs, and out of the corner of my eye I am certain I saw several broomsticks carrying buckets…
I sloshed upstairs and found that the water supply to one of the toilets had been ripped loose and had apparently been filling the house for hours. As best we can tell, a tennis ball rolled behind the toilet, and Saga had to get it, and his collar caught on the pipe and when he jerked to get loose the pipe snapped.
That is the last time we ever left Saga home when we took the others swimming…
