Before I retired last night, I ventured a look at the night sky. The kennel dogs had been restless, and altho only the faint familiar rumblings of steam surging thru a nearby chemical plant seemed audible to my human ears, they must have sensed the sounds accompanying distant lightning which illuminated the cloud cover for minutes at a time, not unlike the flickering faint glow of a fluorescent bulb which is long past overdue replacement.

I was startled into consciousness briefly early this morning by the fury of a passing squall,and then let myself lapse back into nothingness.

The rain would continue sporatically thru the morning, tho none of it with the intensity described above.

My kennels are generally cleaned morning and evening. When I finally donned rain gear and ventured out, about noon, I was startled to see one of my free standing Preifert kennels flattened. No dog house was there, and Max, my 2 yr old, English Cocker lay still,crumpled and soaked between two of the collapsed panels.

My heart sank and my eyes welled, and I cursed myself for not getting up to check on them earlier. It would have been entirely possible that he survived the collapse, only to drown since his nose was being held to the concrete flooring by the panel above, and water, sometimes in heavy rains briefly rushes thu that part of the yard. As I rushed to the scene, I saw his head move ever so slightly toward me... and his tail wag.

Max is fine. His beautiful white and black coat a little disheveled, but jaunty as ever. The way the panels fell, he had just enough room to not be injured. We were lucky. I am thankful!

Whew!

Wow! I didn't want to finish. I had a friend named Larry Hill who had two of his dogs killed by a tornado.

Thank God!

Dang, glad it worked out. Well-written but I didn't want to finish it, either. I'm glad I did.

Sounds like Max is one lucky dog.

Thanks for your kind responses.

Altho I was a little skeptical prior to last season, My Maxie evolved into a great little gun dog. Altho not quite as aggressive at flushing as my little female, Millie, he is one heck of a quail retriever, and at least as good as she is on "hunting dead".

You may think of those of us who maintain multidog kennels and do guide work as not being all that attached to our dogs, but you would be mistaken.

Pointer, I need a pup out of Max. You should have named him Lucky.

Sheesh i was as well very worried! Very happy he is ok!