The Downside to a Wagging Tail

There are some responses which are kind of automatic for a K9, stuff you can't stop doing even if you wanted to, like wagging your tail when you feel pleased about something or crawling on your belly and not looking at The Owner when you have eaten something out in the garden that you know The Owner won't approve of but he just hasn't found out yet what it was. That kind of response!

Well you may recall my efforts at waking The Owner the other morning by sneaking upstairs when he got up for a wee and spending the rest of the night curled up on the sheepskin rug I had dragged under the bed. Well I had re-thought the whole matter and decided another attempt at finding that moment when he wakes up and before he gets his grumpy head on. So he was busy most of the evening sorting out someone's computer that seemed to be having a bit of a paddy over who knows what, but when he was finished he poured himself a large glass of something red and sat down. As normal, he sat down, took one sip and fell asleep. This was my moment, I thought! Tee hee! I silently crept up the stairs and after a quick sniff at one or two strange looking garments on his bedroom floor I dragged the sheep skin under the bed again and went to sleep. At close to midnight, with his head hanging over the back of the sofa in a manner likely to give him a stiff neck and with his mouth wide open, his snores finally woke himself up with the kind of snort that normally only a pig would make....hmmm, no, I can see the connection! So I hear him get up, turn the lights out and grumble something about seeing me in the morning and then clamber up the stairs. Tee hee, he hasn't noticed I was not in my bed! The Owner clambered in to his bed and turned the light off and pulled the covers up over his ears. This was where it unravelled slightly for me. I felt generally quite pleased with myself at getting up here and under the bed unnoticed, And what do K9's do when they feel pleased? They wag there tails, that's what! My mind is saying "Don't wag, don't wag!" But the tail clearly has other intentions and starts wagging furiously back and forth and hitting the leg of the bed on every wag. The Owner sat up quickly in his bed and the plan was undone! "You can come out from under there", the voice boomed. I tried to ignore it, but the tail wagged more. "Jack, go downstairs!" The plan was undone, I will have to try another tack tomorrow.