if cats have nine lives, how many lives do dogs have?

we tried to warn you, Charly said

Charly’s loud barks startled Pretty and me late Friday night when she jumped to her feet from her bed next to me in the den, staring toward the darkness of our backyard. Spike joined in with her from his sofa in the living room.

What’s up with the dogs? I asked Pretty who shook her head as she scrolled Twitter from her chair for any tidbits about the first round of the Final Four women’s basketball games we watched that night. I glanced behind me from my comfortable recliner in the direction of Charly’s gaze but didn’t see any lights from our backyard motion detection devices, sighed, gave Charly a withering look for disturbing my focus on the second half of the UConn/Iowa game, raised the volume on the TV until Charly and Spike eventually stopped barking.

Some time later I noticed our elderly 100% deaf dog Carl wasn’t in his usual spot on the rug in front of the fireplace screen. Do you know where Carl is, I asked Pretty who looked up from her phone in the direction of the kitchen. Probably in the kitchen, she said. I got up and checked his alternate sleeping spot in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. That’s odd, I thought.

He must be outside, but I’ll take a look, I said to Pretty who nodded. Charly seemed eager to go out with me.

As we walked around the swimming pool in the chilly air, the motion detection lights clicked on to reveal what looked like the shape of a very large rat swimming barely below the surface of the water at the deep end of the pool opposite where Charly and I were standing. She ran around to that side of the pool as I followed her.

The moving object came into focus when I approached, and my blurry eyes finally recognized Carl’s little terrier head barely above the surface of the water but still moving with his short arthritic legs keeping him afloat.

I can’t swim so I started yelling for Pretty who couldn’t hear me over the TV in the den. I walked as fast as I could to the back door yelling Carl’s in the pool, Carl’s in the pool!!

Pretty jumped up, ran past me to the swimming pool where Charly was still standing guard over Carl, and the next thing I saw while I tried to reach them was Pretty diving into the pool to lift Carl out of the freezing water, swimming him to the nearest ladder.

Minutes later we had wrapped the shivering Carl in towels and blankets in front of gas logs blazing in the den. I held him while an equally shivering Pretty changed out of her wet clothes. We had no idea how long he had been in the pool, how much water he swallowed, whether he would survive the whole ordeal.

You’re my hero, I said to Pretty when she walked into the den in dry clothes. She shook her head, but I repeated No, you are really my hero. Carl would be gone without your brave rescue. Let’s hope he pulls through tonight, Pretty replied.

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Carl two days later – with a look that might say you should have listened to Charly and Spike Friday night. First, you take me on a car trip across the country to a basketball tournament in Albany, New York and when I make it home from that adventure this week, you nearly let me drown in the swimming pool. Talk about March Madness, and thank God for Pretty and April, if you don’t mind me saying.

You know what, Carl? I don’t mind your saying, and I couldn’t agree more.