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the mad mare
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« on: March 31, 2007, 04:32:32 AM » |
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Just thought I'd share a true story with you about our puppy .....
Mighty Mouse, the Yappy Puppy
Little dogs are notorious for their overly “yappy” qualities, but perhaps
sometimes there is a perfectly good reason behind their annoying barking …
She was only a small handful of skinny, black puppy when we brought her home.
“What the hell’s that?” demanded Dad, who preferred real dogs like German Shepherds. “Take the useless thing back! What’s it good for?”
The kids just ignored his sarcastic commentary as they usually did, then argued about what to name the puppy … “Trinket”, “Sooty”, “Poppet”. Dad chimed in again. “Yeah, Poppet sounds good. If my big boot comes down on that little runt, I’ll “pop-it” all right!” He wandered off laughing at his own sick sense of humour and the kids sighed, shook their heads and continued to take no notice of him. We couldn't decide on a name, so it was simply referred to as Puppy.
Dad never did have much tolerance for the pup, calling it an oversized rat, until there was a terrible mouse plague in the wheat crop. The pup, now a fully mature but still very tiny dog, proved herself by catching an impressive quantity of mice each day and presenting them to the Dad one by one. Dad couldn’t deny being impressed that the dog did in fact have some sort of skill and showered her with praise and even allowed her ride on the four-wheeler with him.
If Dad was away, she caught mice all day and stacked them in a neat pile beside the Dad’s workbench for him to see when he came home at night. He now gave her the important title of “Mighty Mouse”, half due to her mouse catching skills, but still partly as insult to her oversized ears. When the mouse plague finished, the dog slowly resumed its place of worthlessness in the household as Dad forgot her endearing qualities, but at least the dog now had a name.
That’s when Mightly Mouse started barking frantically at night like her throat was being cut, and Dad decided in his superior wisdom that it was an attention seeking effort on the dog’s part to regain his lost favour. He promptly announced that he would take control of the situation.
Each night when the dog began it’s frantic barking, Dad’s solution was to sling open the sliding glass door and bellow some intelligent insult at the dog, like “Shut up, ya’ stupid little bat eared beast!” At first this seemed to work. The dog would slink into its little foam dog-house and quiet would reign for the rest of the night. Dad thought this proved his point that the dog respected authority when it heard it and puffed his chest out.
However, night after night this little game continued to get worse. Dad’s threats to her health continued to be just as intelligent. “If you don’t shut up dog, I’m gunna reach down your throat, grab ya’ by the tail and rip ya’ inside out, ya’ useless mutt!” Again, as though understanding his words, the dog became quiet and Dad scored another win. Dad returned to bed muttering and grumbling like that old cartoon character “Pa Bear”, something about worthless, mongrel dogs, blah, blah, blah.
The dog’s nightly frenzied yapping routine rose to new heights and to make matters worse, she began trying to dig her way through the glass sliding door, which resulted in the door rattling in the frame. The “yap, yap yap, scratch, scratch, scratch, thump, thump, thump” went on continuously and almost drove everyone crazy.
This time, as he opened the door to stick his head out and yell at the offending canine, she shot like the proverbial bullet through the door, nails skidding on the tiles, lost control around the corner to the bedroom, slammed into the wall, regained her footing and disappeared under Mum and Dad’s bed.
Well, that didn’t do much to improve Dad’s mood and he marched into the bedroom intending to give the dog a new earful of promises. He stuck his head under the ruffled valance of the bed, threatening to “ twist her yapping head clean orf her scrawny neck”, but of course, the dog moved three steps away, just out of reach of Dad’s murderous hand. Suddenly, Dad heard a young girl’s voice “What are you doing Mr Johnson?”
Then he remembered that their was a swarm of Grade 5 girls in the house on a birthday sleepover for his daughter and they had caught him in this less than graceful all-fours pose in his nightly attire of just underpants. Tightly clustered in the doorway to the bedroom, they were directly behind him getting the full benefit of his awkward position and giggling like Grade 5 girls do. “He’s wearing red undies!” blurted one of them which caused a whole new chorus of snorting giggles.
Dad’s reaction was to rip his head up, which very forcefully connected with the frame of the bed and led to another string of expletives he could only hope the young girls didn’t fully understand (and hoped even harder that they wouldn’t tell their parents about when they got home). They scampered off laughing, quite the highlight of their night, and the thumping googie on the back of Dad’s head caused him to forget the mongrel pooch hiding under the bed.
That night’s chain of events did little to enhance the relationship between Dad and the dog and his mood was fairly dark all the next day. We hoped the dog wouldn’t bark the next night, because we knew that war wouldn’t end well for the dog.
The next night, the situation rose to a whole new level and the outcome was more of a surprise to Dad than anyone! This time when little Mighty Mouse began her midnight serenade, Dad had plotted and prepared for a new plan of approach which involved the element of surprise. This time, he flicked on the back lights, reefed the door open with a sudden and frightening force, honked some vicious sounding horn that he must have purchased secretly in town that day, and stomped loudly like a crazy person in his heavy work boots in an attempt to scare the poor unsuspecting dog into terrified submission.
This time, in the pool of light flooding the back patio, he saw five or six dingoes, head down munching in the dog food bowl. They took a couple of seconds to adjust to the light, then scampered silently away into the blackness and safety of the night. Suddenly he understood that Mighty Mouse’s hysterical barking each night had been a desperate plea for someone to save her life, in case the dingoes discovered that fresh meat tasted better than dry dog bits.
The poor dog’s nightly shivering routine gave a whole new meaning to the saying “shaking like a dog pooping peach seeds”. She was literally pooping herself each night wondering when the wild dogs would to add her to their menu!
Mighty Mouse was nowhere to be seen. Dad was filled with horror that she might have in fact become dingo dessert and a stomach full of guilt forced him to spend quite a while searching and calling until it dawned on him that if the door was open, she would be inside. Yep, there she was, a pair of blinking eyes, shivering under Dad’s side of the bed, like a scared princess seeking refuge in the safety of her much-admired hero.
The kids discussed the surprising turn of events amongst themselves. “I bet he feels like a really poo-head now,” said the youngest, which was about the most descriptive and hurtful insult she could come up with, and she was right. Dad was again on hands and knees with his head under the bed, green undies on display, talking softly to Mighty Mouse in somewhat apologetic tones and even rubbing her bat-wing ears gently, then he let her stay there overnight.
Finally he understood that it wasn’t his authoritative and manly threats causing her respectful silence, it was merely that his thunderous booming scared off the predators each night. Mighty Mouse probably stayed awake until dawn in wide eyed terror in case the dingoes returned and she had to sound the alarm again. No wonder she slept so much through the day! She was exhausted!
Anyway, Dad called a bloke who normally hunted wild pigs but was more than happy to seek and destroy the pack of dingoes, so peace returned once again to our little farm. And I’m happy to report that Mighty Mouse has now regained her rightful position on the front of the four-wheeler, and she is allowed to sleep under the bed every night!
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