Bad Dog

About a year ago my gardener Maxwell and my friend Sam ganged up on me and talked me into getting a dog. Sam had too many at his house and with a number of break-ins in the area, these two thought it would be a good idea for security. Then one dog became two, since there is greater protection with two, or so the theory goes.  I was reluctant, since my experience with Malawian dogs was that they were ferocious. I didn’t want fierce dogs, and especially not around my grandchildren. Maxwell and Sam assured me they would not be. The dogs are the Maxwell’s responsibility and are relatively docile, so they have not been much of a problem, until recently.

Bruce, the first dog, is a cross between a Russell terrier and an African ridgeback. He’s too friendly and playful to be a watchdog, but he has a great bark and that counts for a lot. It is his playfulness that has gotten him in trouble. For some reason, after almost a year of peacefully living around the laundry line in the side yard, he has suddenly decided that those hanging clothes make great toys. He began by pulling my daughter-in-law’s bra off the line and enticing Diesel, his partner in the yard, into a game of tug of war with the bra. Jean was not amused. We retrieved the bra and rewashed it with no harm done. He was reprimanded and seems to have understood. All was quiet for about 3 weeks. Last week, however, the lure of the baby’s diapers drying in the sun proved to be too much and he jumped and pulled until he managed to free two of them from their clothes pins and triumphantly ran around the yard with them flying like flags between his teeth. Jean was angry. He had made tooth holes in the corner of one of the diapers and had gotten dirt on both of them. I tied him up while the rest of the clothes dried and then went and bought a few new diapers to replace the damaged ones. We have hung the diapers in the house to dry ever since. But yesterday he attack again. This time the victims were two sheets and a baby blanket. Jean, who is afraid of dogs, was furious. She set aside her fear as she went after him with a mop to compel him to drop the baby blanket. The sheets were strewn across the grass and up the steps to the kitchen. They were easier to retrieve. The items were undamaged but dirty. The poor housekeeper had to re-launder these things. Laundry here is done by hand, so that was no small task to have to re-do. So Bruce has a new name – Bad Dog – and will live by new rules. He will be on his chain anytime there is laundry in the yard. His friend Diesel has been innocent in this game, to this point, (except for the bra incident), and remains free, prancing past Bad Dog and then lying protectively under the clothes line. Dogs are dogs the world over.

Bruce, the Bad Dog, who can look so innocent