For anyone who ever met Laika (or read the previous stories), you already know that she had very bizarre habits. In addition, she did random odd things pretty regularly that had myself, my roommates and friends wondering if she was really of this Earth. As it turns out, she wasn't. This story perfectly encapsulates her flair for the unusual, which definitely became routine as we spent more time together.
This event took place 10 years ago, when I lived in the large apartment already mentioned in the July 4th story. My mind places this sometime in early August 2007, when I shared the apartment with my friend Kyle. He was one of the early caretakers of Laika, and he loved to spend time with her sitting around doing the finer things in life, like religiously watching every episode of MacGyver on DVD. On this day, Kyle and I had just returned from watching some punk bands play a gig in the woods, so it was probably early evening and I had just let Laika out of her crate, fed her and took her outside to do her business. Upon returning to the apartment, the three of us (Laika, Kyle and I) were sitting around in the dining room.
Kyle and I were talking about the gig or music or something, when we noticed Laika sitting at attention in front of her crate, following the lazy looping of a larger-than-average moth as it coasted around the room. We didn't have a/c in that room of the apartment, so there were sometimes little flying visitors that made it through the gaps of the pressure screens in the windows. On this particular evening, we were graced with the aforementioned moth. As the moth kept circling, Laika kept bobbing her head and tracing its every move with her eyes.
Kyle and I stopped talking when we noticed and became mesmerized by Laika's intense focus on the moth. She would sometimes readjust her position to get a better view of it or move slightly closer as it flew lower in the room. It seemed like she was going to try to catch it, but didn't really make any sudden moves. This continued for several minutes, when suddenly, the moth flew right near Laika's face...she quickly opened her mouth and grabbed it in one quick bite. With the moth fully contained in her mighty jaws, what happened next was completely unexpected...Laika made complete eye contact with me, her eyes opened really wide and she stood-up and started peeing on the carpet!
Kyle, in complete shock, asked, "What the hell is she doing?" I replied, "I have no idea...this dog is so weird!" We were both laughing so hard as Laika was peeing, with her eyes completely bugging out of her head (which, although it seemed endless, was probably like 15 seconds or so). Then the strangest thing happened...Laika opened her mouth and the moth flew out completely unharmed and continued flying around the room as before. Laika responded by sitting down with a confused, yet satisfied look on her face, wagging her tail slowly as if nothing unusual has just occurred.
Both Kyle and I were completely in stitches laughing, but I somehow managed to clean up the pee on the carpet without even reprimanding Laika for the mess. In fact, I think I probably gave her a proper treat for providing such level of strange entertainment for us. In the conversation that followed, Kyle and I theorized the scientific cause for what we had just witnessed: the moth's still beating wings tickled the inside of Laika's mouth causing her to pee and eventually release her flying captive. Seemed like a solid assessment of the situation, but no level of logic could properly convey the insanity that we had just witnessed. For Laika, though, this was just another day on Earth. Probably on her home planet, such things were commonplace...it would take a few more months for her to train me to believe that they were here, too.
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