Bye Bye Birdy

Well well well, it’s been a couple of days of dog hubris in my life.

My wonderful post about protecting him forever? Yeah,well…Tuesday night on our walk,we met a pretty little black lab named Annie. Remo liked Annie. Remo liked Annie so much he got all hyper and slipped right out of his leash. He went bounding into the street either two or three different times, all times I’m standing there, wondering what to do, yelling “sit!” or “Remo!” or “OH JESUS CHRIST DON”T GET HIT”.

Which he didn’t. But it was a big hint of how much control I have over him,or don't, especially when he’s playing.

Then last night, on our rainy walk, there was a little birdy. Well, Remo loves little birdies, what doggy doesn’t? So in my dog hubris, I let Remo chase after the FLYING thing, they are supposed to fly right? Birds? Fly? That’s sort of their thing right? Helps them escape things that WALK. Well, Remo caught him. And to my horror, crunched. I didn’t know what to do, I stood there staring at him for a minute, horrified by what my civilized dog had done. And then I went to Remo and stood over him, wondering if he still had the bird, his mouth was shut, so I thought maybe, just maybe, birdy had managed escape. But then, to my despair, I heard the poor birdy chirping inside Remo’s mouth. It was terrible! I pried open his mouth and shook his head till the bird fell out. This is where things get fuzzy, I believe the bird was still alive (I’m just not sure) but as soon as I got him out, I didn’t move fast enough and he was back in Remo’s mouth once again.

This time, I pried open the jaws of death one more time and had to reach in to Remo’s mouth to pull the now dead (I’m almost positive) bird out of his mouth. I had bird feathers and Remo fur on my hand, not sure if I wanted to wipe them on my work pants. I didn’t know what to do, so I left the mangled, hopefully dead bird, on whoever’s lawn this was and took my dog away from there. I was sweating and it was 40 degrees out.

When I arrived home, I told John what happened and how shook up I was. John told me the dog would be fine.

“DOG? You think I’m worried about the DOG? I’m worried about the poor little birdy Remo just MURDERED on our nice walk!”

Anyway, I realize this is what dogs do, and that he was doing what it is in his nature to do. But lordy.

This dog will never look at a bird again, at least not a live one.

Sigh.