Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Today when I got home from work, the kitchen wall, the one with the sliding glass door in it, was gone. The crew (Javier and Carlos) plus one (Filipe, the brick cutter) were still working. I had picked up Ray and Murphy on the way home so Gregg took them for a walk around the block while I changed out of my work clothes. Then, I dropped off Murphy at St. Marva's house, and Ray and I walked home. As soon as the crew left, (and after he broke a cat dish and ate a can of shave cream), I let Ray out the house. Ray was a bit freaked out by the boot scraper, which wasn't in it's usual spot by the kitchen door (which at this moment doesn't exist), and was even more freaked out when he discovered that his hole was gone. One day it was next to the kitchen door, right where he had left it. The next day it was gone. Snatched right out from under his nose.

So Ray set out to immediately rectify the situation. First, he sniffed around the spot where his hole should have been, scraped around a bit, then picked up something in his teeth, (kind of like when we try to feed him a vegetable) and carried it into the backyard. "Don't eat it!" I ordered Ray as he dropped "it" briefly into the grass then picked it up again in his teeth, his lips pulled back in a grimace. Gregg walked over to Ray and gingerly pulled the thing from between Ray's canines (ha). Ray didn't resist. "It's a cigarette butt," said Gregg. I knew that a blind dog in a construction site could face dangers, but I didn't think that one of them would be lung cancer.

Ray returned to his construction site. I watched as he started to dig, then decided that maybe I wasn't too smart letting him scratch a hole where the guys had been working. The thought that maybe there would be nails, screws and other sharp objects laying around motivated me to take his collar and gently lead him into the house and away from his industriousness. The new hole would have to wait for another day.