A Twilight Zone Christmas present

Our neighbor's dog Duke did the strangest thing that I've ever heard of a couple days ago. He was outside playing and came up to their door with a green cloth box in his mouth. Duke is a very large puppy (over 100 pounds at 9 months old) and anything he finds is usually destroyed.

But not this box. He held it somewhat gingerly in his mouth.

Our neighbor brought him inside and took the box from him. Inside that box was a very nice glass Christmas ornament. On that ornament were pictures of dogs and cats. Stage the music from the Twilight Zone.

Her first thought was that we planted it with him, but we're not stupid enough to give "Mr. Destroyer of All Things" something fragile like a glass ornament. Duke is a dog that is so clutzy that he actually ran into a car one time and landed in the ER. Anytime someone makes a clutzy move now, we call it "pulling a Duke".

It's a lovely ornament, and something they'll proudly hang on their tree for years to come. After all, their puppy Duke found it and brought it to them safely.

That's somewhat eerie if nobody planted it on him.

Amazing how they sometimes just know. I had a large dog called Teddy some years ago and he would jump up at anyone who came to visit (he was big enough to put his paws on your sholders) The first time my dad came over to france to visit us I was really worried because he had two false legs and was a bit wobbly, but Ted knew straight off not to jump up and just waited for my dad to sit down before he went to say hallo.

Originally Posted by Milk maid

Amazing how they sometimes just know. I had a large dog called Teddy some years ago and he would jump up at anyone who came to visit (he was big enough to put his paws on your sholders) The first time my dad came over to france to visit us I was really worried because he had two false legs and was a bit wobbly, but Ted knew straight off not to jump up and just waited for my dad to sit down before he went to say hallo.

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Pets are extremely adept at reading body language. It's not surprising that a dog would immediately know someone with two false legs and not jump on them. You spend all that time and possibly money training them, and their natural instincts are still some of their most surprising "tricks"

What a wonderful Christmas story! I bet they'll cherish that ornament!

What a neat story! I wonder where on earth Duke got it from? It will be an enduring mystery, remembered each time they put up the tree.

That's the end of "pulling a Duke" phrase.

That is an amazing story!

Awesome story! Maybe it was Duke's present from him to them?

There was a card inside the box that talks about how the ornament was a long lost art form. A small hole is drilled into the glass and the figures painted from the inside. The box itself was a very high quality silk like fabric with padding to make it soft. It closed with an expensive brocade style closure. This was not a cheap ornament by any means.

My neighbor came over last night and we asked him point blank if he was trying to pull a trick on all of us. He had enough holiday spirits in him that he would have admitted it had he done that.

Then we thought perhaps it was a gift left on the porch of one of the neighbors. Because it was obviously expensive, and seeing that there were both dogs and cats on the ornament, we came to the conclusion that if it had been a gift, the recipient had to really love both dogs and cats to have someone spend the money on this ornament. But guess what? We are the only 2 families in our subdivision that love animals enough for anyone to do that for us. And neither of us know anyone who would buy us a gift like that.

So the mystery will always remain. And Duke gave his family a lovely gift this year.

Originally Posted by Momofmany

There was a card inside the box that talks about how the ornament was a long lost art form. A small hole is drilled into the glass and the figures painted from the inside. The box itself was a very high quality silk like fabric with padding to make it soft. It closed with an expensive brocade style closure. This was not a cheap ornament by any means.

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Here are a couple of links with such ornaments.

http://www.thecollectionshop.com/Neqwa_Art.asp

http://www.nycwebstore.com/detail.as...T_ID=PA-NYRC_O

There is a logical explanation for how the dog came to have this ornaments. It could have been someone dropped it by accident. The fact that it has dogs/cats really means nothing. It could have been a gift that someone was going to give to someone else. It is a mystery to be sure.

Maybe your neighbour could post signs about having found an ornament, and asking that the ornament be described (IE: the scene, the box colour etc.

Maybe the local paper can help?

That's a pretty nice Christmas story