Our dog Spike is a Texas immigrant to South Carolina. We brought him from Worsham Street where he was unceremoniously dumped by an unknown person – possibly a UPS driver or FedEx person since these trucks always seem to annoy him more than anyone in the world. They are the object of much barking and, if the opportunity presents itself with the back door open, he will race through the doggie door, jump the fence in out back yard, and tear after the delivery trucks as if chasing after the Hounds of the Baskerville. Other than his fence jumping, he is a very sweet dog who makes few demands of us.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

In the last two weeks, I’ve noticed Spike spends most of his outside time sitting or lying down in front of our wrought iron gate in the back yard gazing through the bars to the street behind us. He’s always been fascinated with Manning Avenue because it has a lot more activity – people walking by, cars driving by, neighbors visiting on their front porches – than the less interesting Canterbury Road our house faces, but he’s never been quite so fascinated with “gate gazing.”

So I made an effort to solve the mysterious attraction and found that there were three little dogs running up and down the street and one of them made friends with Spike who was a Goliath compared to the smaller dog, but the little fellow liked to visit Spike at the back gate and/or on the street whenever Spike was out on a fence jumping adventure. The little dogs always ran to the same house and I assumed it was their home. Ding, ding, ding. Incorrect assumption.

This afternoon the Dog Catcher came through our neighborhood and parked in front of the house where the little dogs were staying and scooped them up one by one in front of the house while Spike who had jumped the fence and raced to their rescue barked at me who was unaware of the drama unfolding and simply carrying the garbage bag out the back gate to the dumpster when I heard the Dog Catcher hollering at me. Hey, do you know who that big dog belongs to?

Yes, he’s mine, I said and began to try to railroad Spike to the back gate. But he wasn’t cooperating so I had to go inside our casa to locate Pretty and ask her to help me corral our dog before he was also scooped up by the Dog Catcher. Pretty to the rescue. With one final look back at his friends, Spike was reluctantly collared and brought safely inside.

Tonight he is inconsolable. He walked slowly to his crate after he ate and stayed there for the rest of this Election Eve as Pretty and I watched POTUS and FLOTUS and POTUS-in-waiting at a huge rally in Philadelphia… and became very emotional over the possibility of the first woman President in the White House. Thankfully, the long arduous, often distasteful campaign is over and Election Day is here.

But Spike will have none of it tonight. No joy in Mudville. The Mighty Casey had struck out in his efforts to save his buddies from disaster. Election Eve anticipation and exuberance have been snatched from Casa de Canterbury by a Dog Catcher.

Shit house mouse, as The Red Man was fond of saying. We need to make a plan.