Oh,The Wonders of Cinnamon

So as not to mislead anyone, I'm not talking about the spice cinnamon. Although I'm sure the spice cinnamon has many wonderful virtures , I'm talking about a dog named Cinnamon. A beautiful Golden Lab dog. Cinnamon is the pet dog belonging to my daughter and her family. Since recently moving in with my daughter and her family I also consider Cinnamon my pet. She takes her role in the family very seriously. For example, when one of the children are crying she promptly runs to them to check it out. She licks their face and whimpers over them as if to let them know she sympathizes with them . If they haven't stopped crying after Cinnamon's tender care she will come to one of the adults in the house and bark. A bark is usually her signal to be let outside so after opening the door to let her out she just sits there looking at you making no attempt to go out the door, she will bark again and run to where the crying child is. We then go to see what's going on. Most times it's nothing serious. However, one time I was watching my two grandchildren, ages seven and four, while their mother was out running errands. I was downstairs working at the computer. The two children were playing upstairs in their bedrooms. It wasn't too long before Cinnamon ,who had been sleeping on the floor next to the desk where I was working, got up from her nap and stood there with her ears perked. I'm thinking she probably heard something outside and went back to my work. I wasn't aware of the fact that she had left my side and gone upstairs. A few minutes later Cinnamon came running down the stairs barking excidedly and practically knocked me off my chair. I stood at the foot of the stairs and called out to my grandchildren. No response. Once again I called out. Nothing. Cinnamon began running upstairs again. This time I followed her. Once I got to the top of the stairs I again called out to the children. This time I heard a faint, muffled voice crying out "Help, help!" The voice was coming from my grandson's room. I went to the end of the hallway and tried to open the door. It was locked! I kept calling out to them and getting the same muffled response. I was trying to think of a way to get the door unlocked when suddenly the door opened. My four year old granddaughter was standing there with a tear streaked face. I asked where her brother was. She turned and looked and pointed at her brother's bed. All the bedding had been pulled off the bed and was in a heap on the floor. "Grandma I'm under the bed!" Now my grandson has a captain's bed. The bed has drawers all across the front and the ends of the bed are solid and the back of the bed is against the wall. The bed is quite heavy and is too heavy for this grandma to move. I pushed the mattress (also very heavy) up against the wall and there sat my grandson with sweat running down his tear streaked face. "How did you get in there?" I asked. "I pushed the mattress up and climbed in." He responded. "How did you lift that heavy mattress up?' I asked in total amazement. Apparently his sister had helped him. After he had climed inside the bed, his sister pushed the mattress back down. I guess it was a lot of fun being inside his bed but after a few minutes it began to get very hot and wanted out. His little sister wasn't strong enough to push the mattress back up so her brother could get out. She tried though. It was an impossible situation. Little sister couldn't get the mattress up and brother couldn't lift the mattress and climb out of the bed at the same time. Little sister was afraid to come get me for fear of getting into trouble. The door was locked so no one , namely me, wouldn't come in and thwart their plans to hide inside the bed. After a stern lecture and a promise to never do anything like that again, faces were washed and there were hugs and kisses all around. We began to talk about their adventure. My grandson asked me "Grandma didn't you hear me screaming for help?"I told him I had not. As we were talking I recalled how Cinnamon was in the bedroom with me whimpering excidedly as I executed my rescue. "Hey" "It must have been Cinnamon who heard you crying for help." I said. "Dogs have an amazing sense of hearing'. So Cinnamon was the real hero. Oh she still does dog things that can be pretty irritating like sit and stare at you while you are eating and drooling all over the place. She sheds like crazy and I'm always brushing dog hair off my clothes. She has to bark at anyone who happens to be walking down the street. This is particularly irritating since the bank of neighbohood mailboxes is right across the street from our house. Oh well, since she is after all a dog, we can forgive all the little irritating things she does. We all praise our Cinnamon the wonder dog.