Wednesday, March 9, 2011

How to outsmart your not-very-smart dog

cute little devil/bat/dog thing
Is your dog being disobedient and refusing to come when you call him? Is he in the backyard sniffing out a delicious rodent-like smell behind the compost bin and gearing up to dig his way into a frozen heap of decaying veggie goulash? Try this clever strategy to gently lure him back to the house:

Feel around in your coat pocket. Do you feel that strawberry dum dum lollipop that your kid got from Great Clips last week after her haircut? Pull that out and tear off the wrapper. Hold it out to your dog and call his name in your most friendly and inviting tone. When he sees you are holding an object in your hand which may or may not be food but should probably be investigated, let him get close and get one tiny lick. Just a taste! Careful, you do not want him to devour the whole thing in one gulp. You’ve seen him do it before, you know he’s capable. Good, now he is definitely interested and is eagerly following you back towards the house, leaping at your hand and circling your feet and circling and leaping so that it is really quite difficult to make any forward progress without tripping over the dog or your own feet.

Now that you are mere steps from the door and can smell the sweet success of doggie deception (or is that the aroma of the cheez-its that you were forced to abandon when the dog started whining?) hold the sucker out to the dog once more for just a wee, tiny taste of sweet, sugary, strawberry goodness so that he is indeed enticed to follow you over the threshold. Easy… that’s right, let him get that germy little black nose nice and close and… Doh!

Son of a bi—he just ripped that whole thing from your hand and now he’s running across the yard with the paper stick jutting out from between his teeth. Dammit, now who’s the idiot chasing a lollipop all around the yard? Christ… wait a minute! He chomped down on it and it popped out of his mouth. Get it! Hah! It’s underfoot! You have containment. Now scoop up the dog with your coat pulled down over your hands so he is unable to plunge his blood-thirsty fangs into your radial artery when he starts snarling and snapping at you like a feral animal. Aha! Victory.

Don’t forget to bring the dirty sucker in the house and throw it away, otherwise he’ll just find it again next time you’re outside. And once you make it back to the kitchen and your delicious box of salty, fake-cheesy heaven, you know, you really ought to give him a dog biscuit or something. You kind of owe him after that totally lame yet totally warranted scam. Good dog!

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