Momnesia

Bad Mommy

So I bought the shock collar.

I put it on Barkley and Scott and I waited. He RUFFED around the house for a few hours before I finally said, "Honey, I don't think it's working." Turns out the battery was in wrong. More waiting.

Then, it was time to go potty. Once outside, Scrabble spotted a squirrel, his arch-nemesis. He couldn't hate them more if they were midget ninjas attacking at our back door. He took off after them, running and barking at the top of his lungs. Barkley, a follower of the lemming category, said to himself, "Yeah, me, too!" and leapt forward with a merry "RRRRRUUFF!" ...
and promptly fell over squealing like a pig!

He scrambled up and ran around for a minute, yelping, until he realized that just made it worse. Then he stood there, confused and pissed and a little breathless, while Scrabble nosed him and whined sympathetically - and set the damn collar off again. God! It was painful to watch - and funny as hell. I chased after him, crying and laughing, until I was choking and had to stop. It's not supposed to effect him that way, but there is a Saint Bernard on the collar's package, and he's so teeny tiny that it probably wasn't meant for him.

He spent the rest of the day clinging to me and hiding under chairs. Poor baby. But it's been a unusually quiet couple of days.

Scott decided to try it out. He put the collar on his neck and gave a tentative bark. "Ruf!"
Nothing happened. I snickered.
"Honey, you're going to hurt yourself."
"RufRuf!" He barked some more.
Nothing. I laughed out loud.
"Stop it, for real."
He grinned.
"RUF! RUF! RUF! RUF!"
To watch a 33-year-old grown man with a dog collar on, devilish look in his eye, yelling "ruf! ruf! Ruf!" in an uncanny imitation of an eight-pound Jack Russell puppy... oh, man. I was laughing and crying until I couldn't breathe, covering my face with the pillow and squealing "Stop it! You're going to knock yourself unconscious and I can't lift you!" He kept up, getting louder until finally he jerked the collar away from his neck.
"Whoa. It got me that time," he said.
"Really?" I gasped.
"Yeah. But it wasn't bad. It was more annoying than anything."

I was relieved but I'm still a rat-bastard for shocking my dog.