Ellie - the courthouse dog

Photo:  Ellie and Paige at the King County Courthouse in Seattle.

Am resting on a sandy beach somewhere nice and warm.  Every so often someone gives me a tasty little treat and a sip of ice water.  The breeze gently rustles my fur.  Seagulls caw in the background.

Ellie – time to wake up, she says.

No. No.  Am in a wonderful place.  About to take a dip in the warm water.

Ellie…

Sigh.  Open one eye and look at her.    Her blond hair is in a pixie cut.  Eyes twinkle behind hip glasses.  Today she’s wearing a tailored gray pantsuit.  Quite mod and stylish.  She’s a prosecutor.  This means she puts bad people away.  To me she looks like Tinkerbell. Her name is Paige.

Come on Ellie we need to get going…

Get up as slowly as I can.  Make sure she knows how happy I was until her interruption.  Am wearing my snappy blue vest.    She clips on a leash (not that I need one), and we head to the elevator.  Get out on the seventh floor.  Stroll down the hallway.  Meet another lawyer.  Her hair is long, dark and curly – kind of like Medusa.  She seems alright to me.

Medusa leads us into a courtroom that is not in session.  It is being used as a waiting room.  And there he is – the little boy.  He smiles at me.

While Paige walks me over, I check him out.  Excuse the cliché, but this boy is as cute as a button.  I want to lick his freckled face silly.  But know my manners.  He’s wearing a button up black shirt and a skinny tie.  His hair does that whoop de whoop thing that you can do with some sort of styling product if you’re cool.  He’s cool.

He pats the top of my head and my sides.  Nice.  I lay down and Paige shows him the way to my heart.  Rubbing my belly of course.  Oooh,  that is the best.  Even worth waking up.  Make friends with him a little longer, and Medusa says – okay time to go.

I know what this means.  Put on most adorable facial expression.  Follow the lawyers, little boy and his family members.  Walk across hall into Judge Middaugh’s courtroom.  Paige and the little boy walk up to the witness box.  I know he’s scared.  Can feel it.  The jury box is filled.  The judge and her staff are up on a pedestal.  Lots of dark suited lawyers line tables.    They all smile at us.  Do my best to look coy.

The little boy sits down.  I lay down at his feet.  Paige is perched behind us.  The judge asks the little boy if he knows what it means to tell the truth.  He does.  Medusa starts asking questions.

Little boy is anxious.  So I do my best imitation of a slug hoping it will calm him down.  Periodically Medusa asks if he’d like to pet me.  Of course he says yes (who wouldn’t).  And as the questions continue, he relaxes.  Yup there it is – he just smiled.  The questions continue, he doesn’t want to answer a few of them and doesn’t have to.  He deserves to pet my stomach, so I roll over.

Then it’s over.  But first, Paige gives the little boy a tasty treat.  Which he delicately pops into my now happy mouth.

Stroll out of there.

Back in the elevator.

Back to the prosecutor’s office.

Lie down under Paige’s desk.

Find my way back to that sandy beach.