Some people just can’t be trusted. That’s what Mom told Bodie anyway when she made her wear the harness with the front clip. I thought that Mom had decided that we didn’t have to wear harnesses since they chafe my armpits, but now here she is clipping Bodie into harness again before every run. Just as long as I don’t have to wear one…!
The problem with the harness is that it really cramps Bodie’s style. Whenever she tries to pull Mom after a critter or just some generic excitement, the leash gets tight and pulls her chest back around to face the other way. The more she pulls, the more it turns her away from what she wants to chase. Poor Bodie. All she wants to do is chase stuff, and Mom keeps finding ways to spoil it for her…
Anyway, the harness has made our runs a lot more peaceful because now Bodie trots along with the rest of us like a good little soldier. This makes Mom extra happy because it’s been raining and Mom extra hates pulling in the rain. It’s something about how slippery things are bad when you run on only 2 of your legs. I know about slippery because I’ve chased runaway toys on hardwood floors. I tried explaining to Mom that if she would just run on all fours like a normal person that this wouldn’t be a problem and she could just kind of surf behind Bodie like I do when I overshoot my toy on a hardwood floor, but she just won’t hear it. Mom is stubborn. That’s why she fights with Bodie so much, because neither of them want to change.
Anyway, with Bodie in her harness Mom took us to the Wetlands that Smell Like a Fart, which is basically like Grand Central Station for bunnies. Mom and Bodie fight the most at The Fart. We had only been running for a couple of minutes when Bodie smelled a real bunny real close. She just couldn’t help herself.
“Long-eared cat! Tally-hooooooo!” she screamed as she pushed off with both back legs to build up some really good speed. But half a second later she had stretched her leash as far as it would go and the harness pulled her around in the opposite direction from the bunny and back toward Mom.
Well Bodie was too excited for this to stop her, so she just kept running in the new direction, even though there was probably no bunny over there. “Goody, goody, gumdrops!” she muttered before she reached the end of her leash again and …BOING! Now she was facing the bunny again.
As she ran across my path on the rebound we crashed into each other. “What’s your problem, Oscar?!” she growled and nipped at me. “Can’t you see I’m chasing the long-eared cat?!”
…BOING!…
“Back off!” growl… snap…
…BOING!…
“It’s mine! All mine!” snap… warning yip…
It was real distracting with Bodie flying back and forth like that. I tried to back up and get out of way, but then I was getting all tangled up under Mom’s legs. Mom for her part was having trouble keeping her balance on her silly hind legs because Bodie was jerking her back and forth like they were playing a full contact game of tug. Mom was even too confused to scream, so I started barking for her. Just to help…
“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE THIS FROM ME!” Bodie growled on her next rebound.
I didn’t even want her stupid bunny. I was just excited by all the excitement and was looking for a good opportunity when I wouldn’t get run over by Mom to stop in my tracks and bark into thin air like I usually do when I’m excited. That’s what’s fun for me.
Do you guys ever deal with people like that? They get so possessive of their dumb thing: whether it’s a rotten ball, or their human who looks stupid anyway, or their gross kibble… Like just because their precious human/ball/dinner/bunny is the most valuable thing in the whole wide world to them, that doesn’t mean that all the other dogs in the world are out there trying to take it from them. Most of the time, I don’t even care about their Precious. I usually think that Bodie is one of the most beautiful dogs in the world, but when she gets jealous like that she turns mean and ugly and she’s less fun to play with.
But we’re family, and that means that it’s my job to be supportive, even if she’s being ugly and mean and wrong. So instead of getting in her way when she’s chasing the bunny, I stood back and barked, “Yeah! “You show him! “That bunny’s no match for you! “You’ll get that waskally wabbit! “So unfair! “You would have had him that time if it weren’t for the harness…” …even if sometimes it’s a lie. Mom says that’s called “being supportive” and it makes Bodie enjoy chasing her bunny even more when she has someone cheering her on.
-Oscar the Supportive Gentleman
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