The South’s Loch Ness Monster

We live way out in the country and our swimming pool is something we installed solely for the enjoyment of our grandchildren. They almost have more fun watching Squirt around the pool than they have swimming. Squirt hates the Polaris pool vacuum with a passion. He hates it almost as much as the man who throws the newspaper, which is another whole story. Squirt has made at least a million trips running around the pool trying to grab the Polaris and break its neck. He’s gotten pretty good at grabbing it and shaking it hard before it finally gets away. His first summer, he cut the corner too sharp on the deep end of the pool and would have drowned had we not seen what happened. It was pitiful to see his little front paws trying to clutch at the edge of the pool attempting to get back out. Every summer since, we have put him in the pool a few times and pointed him toward the steps in hopes he’ll remember the way out in case he falls in again. Rat terriers do not swim well, but even a lab can’t swim forever. Squirt is real careful now, but he has never given up trying to capture and kill his version of the Loch Ness Monster. We finally had to stop running the thing when Squirt is in the back yard because Squirt has just gotten too old to do that kind of work. He spent almost an entire afternoon going for it last year at the laughter of the grandchildren, but when he almost couldn’t get out of his bed the next morning we knew he had overdone it. Our vet said that he is really getting a bad back and I guess his Loch Ness Monster has bested him after all.


He's inspecting the pool for any signs of the monster and you can bet he'll risk his life protecting us from it.