Dog Daze

As most of you know, we have Boston Terriers - two of them. Many of you may also be aware that when they are together, they don't get along with other dogs. Ever the optimistic mommy, I like to point out to Russ they don't try to attack EVERY dog that they meet. We have encountered 3 that they haven't acted like Kujo towards. Separately, however, they are fine. Peculair, huh? I attribute this quirk to the fact that they share a brain.

A future meeting with their uncle Watson (who is nearly 1.5 times their size but 3 times their age) is not only inevitable but a family obligation. So we measured them for a pair of custom made leather muzzles. Well, their Hannibal Lecter masks arrived in the mail last week. The day they arrived, when I got home from work, I didn't get my usual greeting. Isn't that just one of the greatest feelings in the world: a dog's hello? I could have failed a calculus test, ran over a squirrel, cut off an old lady, pooped my pants, robbed a bank, picked my nose and ate it, got caught pretending I had turrets, whatever; but my dogs, my dogs are my biggest cheerleaders, and I am the hero of their earth: "Woo-hooooooo! Thank God, you are home! My you have been gone for-EV-er. I thought I would never see you again. Ohmygosh, you are Ah-live! I can hardly contain myself, my life is complete!"

Anyway, so when I didn't get my usual greeting, I figured they were outside. Russ heard me come in the door and announced that the dogs had gotten a package in the mail. I came around the corner and saw them frozen, each one a perfect statue of a muzzled Boston Terrier. Russ had put their new muzzles on them about 15 minutes earlier, Rosetta was on the couch and Flint was on the floor a couple of feet from the coffee table. They were both sitting with their heads bowed, like gargoyles. They wouldn't move - even when they saw me. They would only shift their eyes, as a mime would, and loll their heads in the most abject state of depression. Knowing that they weren't in any physical pain and that they had brought this psychological trauma on themselves, I chuckled a bit and shook my head.

After we watched them for awhile, Russ and I decided to take them for a walk to see how they'd do. Holy crap, was that ever a scene to behold! Normally when we ask them if they want to go on a walk, they act like they are tagging in on Wrestlemania. On this day they were submissive, dejected, and just plain ANG-ry. As soon as we were out the front door, their angst transformed into pure avarice. As Flint walked down the sidewalk, his front paws clutched at his imprisoned snout while his back legs made all of the ambulatory contributions. He looked like an otter doing a reverse wheelbarrow walk. And Rosetta, Rosetta felt the weight of ignominy for the entire Boston Terrier race. Proving she possesses only a fraction of a brain and that what she has is housed in a very thick skull, she repeatedly banged her head - that's right, banged her HEAD - against the pavement: "For shame, for shame! Woe is the Muzzled Boston Terrier! Woe is the Muzzled Boston Terrier! Never has one known such disgrace as this! NEVER!!! God-damn-IT! Get this thing off of my snout! I WON'T stand for it! URGHHHHHhHHhH!”

And so it went, for a little less than a block. Then Russ and I were laughing too hard to continue. Tears started streaming down our cheeks. Rosetta had shit herself with frustration and, in the fray, gotten some of it on Flint's back and whilst flailing her head in rage, she whacked her head so hard against my left ankle bone that it made my foot immediately bruise and swell up. Too much. It was too, too much. Drool sluished out the corners of her mouth as she howled and caterwalled like a banshee. Wheuff. We'd seen enough. We took them back home, cleaned them up, went for a walk by ourselves, and demuzzled the poor poor terries after they had calmed down.

The next day, when we had company, we put the muzzles on them again, partly as part of the adjustment process, but also so we could show my friend just how silly these dogs get. The dogs were all kinds of cheerful, lovin' life... but, again, the moment we muzzled them, they froze, hanging their heads like gargoyles. We tried to get them to come out to the backyard, their domain and BT heaven on earth; but they were stricken, fixed to the ground as firmly as Lot's wife. We picked them up and put them out on the grass. They continued to hang their little heads ignominiously praying that their archenemies the squirrels and the neighbor dogs wouldn't catch sight of them.

We cajoled Flint to come back inside and he was bold enough to walk across the rest of the yard, but I had to pick up Rosetta and to get her back inside. She buried her head in my armpit to hide her face from the accusing cruel, cruel world. Once we demuzzled them, they gamboled about with renewed canine glee.

Since then, Russ has made them wear their "shame and torture devices" for about an hour each day. He says that they freeze initially, but as soon as he stops staring at them and pretends to ignore them, they run about and play. I guess they only feel humiliated when someone is watching.