Luna. Luna, Luna, Luna. You have been such a great dog these last two years. You haven't destroyed any furniture, mauled any shoes, or demolished any household item when we've left you home alone. You haven't even tried to drink out of the toilet. OR HAVE YOU?!?!?!

Recently, we've had some plumbing issues in the house. The first one was only discovered one morning (just before I was supposed to leave for work - of course), when I found Luna's head and paws inexplicably covered in water. After further investigation, I noticed that our kitchen ceiling was buckling under the weight of some wayward water from our upstairs neighbors' shower. Then on Friday night, we saw water dripping down a light fixture in our dining room, this time from their other bathroom toilet.  Fortunately, it *seemed* that this incident was contained fairly quickly.

So, on Saturday, when D and I got home from dinner out, I took Luna outside, and D noted (with a certain degree of alarm) that Luna's head and paws were soaked. Naturally, we feared the worst, that another portion of our ceiling had collapsed. What we didn't know was that it was SO MUCH WORSE THAN THAT!!! I brought Luna back inside and immediately investigated the dining room ceiling. To my great relief, everything was intact, dry, undamaged. And then, just as my heart rate began to settle, there was a sudden shriek from down the hall.

\"Honey, we have a problem!\" D declared. \"I think Luna's lost her mind. I think she tried to kill the bath mat.\" I approached the bathroom, cautiously, and found my husband standing over the edge of the tub, investigating the mutilated mat and dislodged drain plug. So transfixed was he, that he had failed to notice the real crime scene: the toilet. There was water dribbled everywhere - on the toilet seat, down the side of the toilet, and pooled at its base.

For the benefit of the ladies in my audience, I'm sorry - this one is my fault. My husband - like any husband - does plenty of things that annoy me, but unlike so many men in this world, he actually flushes the toilet, puts down the toilet seat, and nine times out of ten, closes the toilet lid.  In this case, it was I that had not flushed, and not closed the lid. Luna had clearly taken advantage of this, much to our dismay.

For those of you that have read Garth Stein's \"The Art of Racing in the Rain,\" (available at your favorite bookseller) we couldn't help but think of the scene where the narrator/protagonist, Enzo the mutt - in a hunger-induced hallucination - believes that Zoe's stuffed zebra is taking advantage of his human's other toys, so he attacks and disembowels it. We imagined that Luna must have considered the bath mat a direct threat to herself and her humans - that it was lying patiently in wait for the perfect moment to 'take us out' in the shower - so she decided to launch a preemptive strike before it could injure or maim any of us.

More realistically, we can only surmise what happened in our brief, two hour absence. It has been rather warm here lately, so we think that perhaps Luna was looking for a cool place to lie down. She must've climbed into the tub, and 'dug' at the bath mat like she does on her pillow, trying to make a comfortable roost. After resting a bit, she decided to quench her thirst, and made for the nearest drinking vessel, disregarding the discolored water it contained.

She more or less knew, as soon as we'd come home, that she'd done something terribly out of the ordinary - even without any scolding from us, she slinked about guiltily. After D had tidied the tub, and I'd mopped the floor, it was time for a good, full bath for little Miss Potty Mouth, who more than willingly climbed into the tub for a good old-fashioned scrubbing!

A quick big thanks to D for the use of his ‘creative writing skills’ on this post.