Henry and the Hungry Monster
I heard it at 2:17 in the afternoon.
A noise.
Not just any noise.
You should understand something about me before we continue.
I have exceptional hearing.
This is not bragging. It is genetics.
For at least four generations, the males in my family have possessed the ability to detect the opening of a pantry door from distances scientists have not yet been able to measure.
My father could hear a cheese wrapper through two interior walls and a running dishwasher.
My grandfather once woke from a dead sleep because somebody three rooms away twisted the lid off a peanut-butter jar.
Family legend says my great-grandfather heard a biscuit hit a kitchen floor in Alabama while he was visiting relatives in Georgia.
I cannot personally verify that last one.
But I believe it.
We are hound dogs.
We have standards.
So when I tell you I heard something strange beside my water bowl before either of my humans did, you can accept this as fact.
I was lying in my usual place on the concrete.
My place.
Seven square feet of prime poolside real estate located exactly where my human most often needs to walk.
There are, for the record, hundreds of other square feet available to him.
He has chosen poorly.
I have occupied this particular property for so long that if squatter’s rights applied to dogs, I would have the deed, mineral rights, and probably voting privileges.
I maintain the grounds.
I provide security.
Squirrel security, mostly.
That is harder work than it sounds.
Twice this year I have almost had to get up.
Almost.
Fortunately, both incidents were resolved by a firm stare and one highly professional ear movement.
You are welcome.
Anyway, I was doing what I do best.
Nothing.
Not lazy nothing.
Experienced nothing.
There is a difference.
Young dogs run around wasting energy on things like birds, tennis balls, and opportunities.
Older dogs understand conservation.
Then I heard it.
Gluuurrrp.
Slurp.
Gurgle.
I opened one eye.
The sound came from beneath the round lid beside my water bowl.
The big water bowl, for clarity, is what my humans call the swimming pool.
You may call it a pool if you wish. You paid for yours.
I did not pay for this one, and I drink from it, therefore it is a water bowl.
A very expensive water bowl with chairs.
The noise came again.
Grrrrroooop.
Slurrrrrp.
Now I was concerned.
I did not get up.
There is concerned.
And there is get-up concerned.
These are not the same thing.
I have learned not to confuse them.
But I listened.
Something under that lid sounded hungry.
I know hungry.
My stomach makes a similar noise approximately twenty-three hours every day.
This is because my humans have placed me on what they call a feeding schedule.
Six meals per day.
Six.
I mention this only so you understand the hardship under which I work.
Now, reader, perhaps you are one of those people who thinks six meals sounds generous.
That is because you are looking at the problem as a human.
Try looking at it as a hound dog.
There are twenty-four hours in a day.
There are only six meals.
I will allow you a moment to do the math.
Exactly.
Cruelty.
So when I heard the starving sound beneath the lid, I felt something close to sympathy.
Not enough sympathy to move.
But close.
The sound grew louder.
Slurp.
Gurgle.
Gasp.
I began considering possibilities.
A frog seemed too small.
A squirrel would have announced itself with criminal intent.
The robotic pool cleaner was elsewhere in the water performing whatever surveillance operation it conducts when humans are not looking.
I have never trusted that machine.
That left one reasonable explanation.
Monster.
There was a monster under the lid.
A hungry monster.
I watched the lid.
The lid did not move.
This was troubling.
Everyone knows the most dangerous monsters are the patient ones.
I considered barking.
Then I remembered barking requires sitting up properly, and this was still well below the established threshold for physical involvement.
So I waited for management.
My male human came outside carrying a glass of iced tea.
He walked past me.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
Neither of us said anything.
We have a relationship based largely on mutual understanding and low expectations.
Then the monster made the noise.
GLURRRRP.
My human stopped.
I lifted one eyebrow.
Finally.
Management had detected the issue.
“What in the world is that?” he said.
I looked toward the lid.
This is called leadership.
He followed my gaze.
He walked over and lifted the round lid.
I remained at a safe command distance.
You may call it twelve feet.
I call it tactical positioning.
He looked inside.
Then he looked at the big water bowl.
Then he said something humans say whenever they discover a problem that has been developing directly in front of them for several days.
“Well, there’s your problem.”
Apparently, the big water bowl was low.
Too low.
When the water drops far enough below the skimmer opening, the skimmer can begin pulling air along with water. That was the strange sucking and gurgling sound.
So there was no monster.
I admit I felt a small amount of disappointment.
A monster would have improved the afternoon.
My human stood there staring at the waterline as though it had betrayed him personally.
Big water bowls lose water, you see.
Sun takes some.
Wind takes some.
People climb out wearing some.
Children remove large quantities using techniques that appear to involve jumping, screaming, and violating several laws of physics.
And, in the interest of complete transparency, I drink some.
I had consumed fourteen mouthfuls that week.
Possibly fifteen.
For several minutes I worried I had caused the entire crisis.
I did some calculations.
They were canine calculations, which are more accurate than they sound because they contain fewer spreadsheets.
At my current drinking rate, I determined that I would empty the big water bowl sometime shortly after the year 2847.
Clearly we had caught the problem just in time.
My human went for the garden hose.
This interested me.
The hose is a long creature that normally lives in a pile near the house and travels across my property whenever management realizes the water is low.
It has no respect for boundaries.
He dragged it directly across my domain.
Again.
I raised my head two inches in protest.
He stepped over me.
Again.
He placed the hose into the big water bowl, turned on the water, and said the sentence that has caused more trouble around this property than thunderstorms, squirrels, and online assembly instructions combined.
“I’ll come back and turn that off in a little while.”
I stared at him.
He went inside.
Now, between you and me, reader, humans have an impressive ability to remember useless information.
My human can tell you the score of a football game played twelve years ago.
He remembers who borrowed a socket wrench in 1998 and never returned it.
He can recall, with courtroom-level precision, which neighbor backed into which mailbox sometime during the first Bush administration.
But a garden hose actively filling my water bowl can disappear from his mind in approximately the amount of time required to smell a hamburger.
I knew this because we had been through it before.
Last time, he forgot.
The big water bowl filled.
Then it filled some more.
Then the water reached the top and began traveling across the deck.
It went around a chair.
Under a table.
Past the flowerpot.
And directly into my seven square feet of legally disputed territory.
My resting spot.
I had been seasoning that concrete for years.
Ruined.
So I lay there watching the hose.
Motionless.
Alert.
Burdened by responsibility.
I had become, without consultation or compensation, Acting Director of Aquatic Operations.
Forty-five minutes later, my human came outside.
He looked at the big water bowl.
Then at the hose.
Then at me.
“I remembered,” he said.
I did not respond.
We both knew what had happened.
The other human had reminded him.
The water rose back to where it belonged.
The hungry noises beneath the round lid stopped.
The monster, apparently, had been fed.
Life returned to normal.
For a while.
Then something strange happened.
A few days later, my human came outside carrying a contraption with a part hanging below it.
He set it at the edge of my water bowl.
He connected the garden hose to it.
I watched all of this with suspicion.
Dogs are naturally cautious around new household management systems.
Especially systems involving hoses.
There was adjusting.
There was looking.
There was more adjusting.
There was the traditional human ritual of stepping backward, placing hands on hips, and staring at an object as though visual concentration might tighten the fittings.
Then he walked away.
The hose stayed connected.
This was unusual.
I waited for the flood.
No flood.
I waited for him to forget something.
Nothing happened.
A day passed.
Then another.
The water in the big bowl stayed where it belonged.
When the level dropped, the little device allowed water back in.
When the selected level returned, the water stopped.
There was no kitchen timer.
No “Remind me in thirty minutes.”
No hose lying across my property.
No emergency sprint from the house because somebody suddenly remembered the water during dinner.
And the monster beneath the lid stopped complaining.
My human called the device a Staypoollizer.
I called it progress.
Not immediately, of course.
A hound dog should never endorse new technology before a suitable evaluation period.
I gave it six naps.
Passed every test.
The most important improvement was obvious.
My human had stopped dragging the garden hose across my domain.
My property values were rising.
Security operations improved.
I could monitor the squirrels without hose interference.
One squirrel actually approached the patio that week.
I almost got up.
That makes three close calls this year.
This job is exhausting.
But there was something else I noticed.
My human spent less time staring at the side of my water bowl.
Less time pulling hoses.
Less time trying to remember what he had turned on.
He sat down more.
Sometimes beside me.
Humans are strange creatures.
They invent chores, then spend half their lives remembering to do them.
Every once in a while they invent something that gives a little of that time back.
I approve of those inventions.
More sitting is good.
Less rushing is good.
Dry concrete is very good.
And if the water stays where it belongs without waking the monster under the lid, everybody benefits.
Especially me.
Because I have important work to do.
There is a squirrel by the fence.
I see him.
He sees me.
Neither of us has moved.
This could take a while.
— Henry
Less hose watching. More pool time.
Staypoollizer is an automatic pool water leveler that adds water when the pool falls below the selected level and stops when that level is restored under normal operating conditions.