Reggie and the Rainy Dilemma

I hear Virginia's been having quite a lot of rain lately, much to the consternation of certain comfort-loving canines. Here is what my mom wrote about Mr. Reg:

The backyard sogginess has put extra demands on our Reggie. You know how he hates rain to begin with and he hates being sprinkled by wet, overhanging tree branches and he hates yard puddles; well, after nearly 80 hours of constant rain, he has had to rank-order his demons and it's a hoot to watch his facial expression as he sifts through his possibilities. (Knowing his propensity to make the evil decision to go in the middle of the yard when the mulch is wet, he is firmly supervised so options in the criminal realm are not available). This morning after several false starts looking forlornly out the back door, he trudged out and crept along the back fence, before heading up toward the new neighbor's side. He surmised that right behind the gardenia bushes was as high and dry as he was going to find (or perhaps nature was making further progress impossible) so he did his business and then, was paralyzed as if he was caught in the blueberry bush bird netting*. He couldn't go left- over hanging tree branches. He couldn't go right, because there was a bottomless pond at the end of the hedge to almost the street. . He looked like Adam perched modestly behind the shrubs in the Garden of Eden as he froze, indecisively with his head just clearing the gardenias, every muscle on his face giving evidence to the cognition within. A couple of minutes went by and his face went into a resigned, "I accept my fate. I shall die in this very spot." I yelled out, "I'm NOT coming out there to get you, Reggie." Still he waited and waited. I did not cave. (I was NOT going out there!) He then moved gingerly forward, tapping the hedge with his nose as if considering how bad it would be to go straight through the gardenia hedge, which as you know has pretty much woven itself into a wall. "Sure, I thought, why would you pick the hardest route? Sure enough, finding that virtually impenetrable he sat down, thought a few seconds and then burst through it like Super Dog. Our Reg! He had risked that shower of water droplets and even the inevitable prickliness.He stopped, shook it all off, grinned up at me. He inspires us all.

*a quirk of his