Norm Stories: The Dog-Park Gate-Opening Incident

Cross-posted from Facebook, September 9, 2024:

If you will indulge me, I will be posting Norm pictures and telling Norm stories for awhile on here. If you've heard (or read) me tell any of these stories before, the algorithm will find other things for you.

This is a favorite picture of mine taken at the Silverado Ranch park. This park was the site of the notorious gate-opening incident, but that's on the other side of the park. Norm just climbed up onto the slide like that and was ready for photography.

The gate-opening incident is one of my favorite Norm stories. We were in the dog park area of the park. Norm liked to go in there and make his rounds saying hello generally to the people in there and, occasionally, to some of the other dogs. And the problem with Norm was when he was done with his social rounds, he would sometimes let himself out. I was at the far end of the dog run, picking up doggie waste, and I saw Norm trotting toward the entrance gates. I knew trouble was, literally, afoot. There was a woman with two dogs struggling to get into the park because one of her dogs was super-anxious to get in and the other was super-reluctant. She was in what I call the "vapor lock" area between the two entry gates.

A bunch of other dogs are in front of the interior gate barking their fool heads off at these two dogs. Norm calmly trots over. With no hesitation, he lifts up the U-shaped latch with his snout, opening the gate. Suddenly there are about 10 dogs in that little vapor lock barking up storms. I rushed over as fast as I could and grabbed the back gate latch so that Norm could not open that one, too. Because 10 dogs in the vapor lock is comedy; 10 dogs in the parking lot would not have been funny at all.