Friday, September 17, 2021

Brotherly, Doggy Love in Our Great Time of Distress


Baron and Merle are my daughter's dogs. They were raised in the country and their behavior definitely shows it. Recently, my daughter needed help in taking Merle (a gigantic Redbone Coonhound) to the vet to get his nails clipped. I thought, Hmmm, should be easy, but I don't understand why we just can't cut the nails ourselves.

Famous last thoughts.

I knew Merle was loud (he sounds like a highly irritable Bull Walrus), but you really can't understand how loud until he bellows for 15 minutes directly into your ear in an enclosed car. From the second the key slipped into the ignition, acting like a starter gun, Merle didn't stop until I pulled the key out. That I fully expected from the last time I transported Merle so this time I had brought some earplugs. Good thinking.

But while we waited outside the vet's office for them to call us in, I ran the wipers to clear the windshield. Merle went nuts, hopped into the front seat and attacked the windshield. I'm freaking out and my daughter's laughing. Laughing!

She says, "Dad, Merle hates windshield wipers. Why would you do that?"

"And you're just now telling me this," I shouted, trying to out-bark Merle.

Soon enough, they called for Merle. It took two nurses, a doctor, and my daughter to trap Merle against the wall so they could clip his nails. I should have taken it as an ominous portent of things to come later that day, for I had also been enlisted in helping my daughter give him a bath and clean his ears.

It should've been an Olympics event.

Baron was no problem, in and out of the tub. Probably the only thing he's good about. Then came Merle's turn. We shut the bathroom door behind the three of us and let the good times roll. As soon as Merle got wet, he leaped out of the tub. Now, I don't know how much Merle weighs--three or four hundred pounds, my back tells me--but trying to corral a herd of stampeding buffalo would've been much easier. Somehow we managed to do it, though. Still...the worst was yet to come.

"Don't let him see the bottle with the ear-cleaner," instructed my daughter in a very troubling manner.

"Hey," I chortled, "he's a dog. He's not going to remember the ear-clean--"

ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF! ARF!...

Merle raced away from us from one corner of the small bathroom to the next, leaving a trail of destruction and wetness in his path. That's what I get for being Mr. Chortling, Know-It-All, Smarter Than Dogs Adulting Guy. And then--only then--did it make sense why my daughter had tried to tape sheets of plastic everywhere like a murder room and moved all the non-attached bathroom stuff out.

We tried the cornering trick as they had at the vet, which didn't work. It was akin to trying to catch a monster-sized greased pig (not that I know what that's like, mind you, but I imagine it is). I tackled Merle, my daughter whipped the bottle up, flipped up his ear, and he barreled through us, the cleaner spraying everywhere but in his ear. After several other attempts, we had no other recourse but to surrender.

Beaten, defeated, soaked more thoroughly than Merle, and sweating like I had in the Amazon jungle, I flopped down onto the couch. A very tentative Merle came padding out and looked at me. With great distrust.

Now, Merle loves me. In fact, he loves everyone he meets, sorta like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, but he used to have a special affinity for his "Grumpaw." 

Not today. Never had I seen such a look of suspicion, wariness, and flat-out betrayal. His eyes said it all. It was truly heart-rending. The rest of the day I tried to make it up to him, but he avoided me like, well, a guy who had the gall to try and squirt something in his ears.

He hid beside the sofa where he thought I couldn't see him like a child: out of sight, out of mind. Eventually, he grew slightly braver and poked his head out, but retreated quickly like a neurotic turtle when he saw me still skulking about. Once I moved off the sofa, Merle crawled up onto it next to brother Baron, and put his paws around his little brother for comfort from the big, bad man and the trauma he'd induced. All the time staring at me, waiting for me to whip out that bottle (see the photo above).

My daughter found it all highly amusing, just another incident where she finds my being traumatized by her dogs the pinnacle of comedy.

"Merle's telling Baron," she interpreted, "that if you ever see Grumpa come at you with a bottle, run."

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