For as
long as I can remember, our family had dogs.
Most of the time we had several dogs at the same time. We had spaniels, shelties, Chihuahuas and
mutts, you name it and we probably had it.
Pooches occupy a special place in my heart but there was one thing that hurt
that special place in my heart...that damn invisible fence.
Firstly
let me say that this occurred during a different time in our collective
timeline. Animal rights were not nearly
as extensive as they are today and we simply thought nothing of using one of
those shock collars when training a dog.
So when my parents bought an electric fence, we didn’t for a second
believe we were going to do any harm at all to the dog…the dog…to the dog…harm
to…the dog. Stay with me.
Our dog
at the time, a mutt that was part wolf had a bad habit of digging under the
fence and getting out of the friendly confines of our yard. She’d run away get all dirty and come back
and sleep until she had enough energy to do it again…say that reminds me of me
in my younger days. Anyway, we lived
near a busy road and wanted to make sure nothing would happen to her so we
bought this invisible fence. The nice men
who came and installed the thing were very careful to go through all the
procedures step by step with us and we listened to the first three of the steps
before getting a collective glazed look in our eyes and missing the last half
of the instructions.
So to get
the nice men to leave us alone, we simply said ‘Got it!’ and signed the
paperwork before seeing them to their Doggy Security van. So they drove off and counted their money,
all the while laughing at the stupid family with whom they had just concluded
business. My father, showing a complete
lack of good judgment, hands me the collar and the batteries and asks me to get
it set up. Naturally, I reverse the
polarity (ie stick ‘em in the wrong way) and almost break the cover of the
collar trying to force them into the battery compartment. Oh that silly, silly man my father is.
Having
realized that perhaps an idiot is not able to comprehend the battery
installation, he takes the collar back from me and installs the batteries
properly and hands the collar back to me.
Now…let’s stop for a moment.
Everybody all caught up? Having some orange slices and getting re-hydrated? Good, because it’s important to get a couple of things clarified
here…Firstly, my eyesight is bad, for those of you who have been with us for a
while, you know that my eyesight is like a TRex in that my eyesight is based on
movement, it’s that bad. Secondly you
need to know that on this particular invisible fence collar, there is a knob
and it goes from zero to ten. There is
no eleven because Spinal Tap was busy giving a concert when we bought this
particular invisible fence. Okay, so we’re
good now? Alright, here we go.
The
theory for the invisible fence is thus…collar goes on dog. Collar is turned on
and set to an acceptable level so that going past the fence post gives such a
shock that the dog isn’t hurt but learns not to go past the fencepost
again. Simple really. It’s exactly like a real fence except that it
isn’t. But it’s important to get the
setting right. You don’t want to hurt the pooch, but you don’t want the dog to
just shrug it off either. Ladies and
Gentlemen, I present to you…me…the idiot.
Still
holding the collar, I dial it to zero and strap it around my neck just in the
fashion it would soon adorn our little poochie woochie. Having put on the collar, I start walking to
the fence line. I cross the threshold
of the fence and God hits me…hard…and not in a playful way. I am looking upward as I discover that my
body has been rather quickly thrust to the ground. I find myself staring into
the sun and a twi….twww….twitching in my right eye that is taking a long time
to stop. My family rushes to my aid…well,
that’s not accurate. My mother is genuinely worried about me and is trying to
make sure I’m okay. My sister is
laughing hysterically and my father has the look of embarrassed indignation on
his face, no doubt regretting continuing our species.
My father
reaches for my neck, somehow resists the urge to simply squeeze until I go
away, and grabs the collar. He examines
it and quickly comes to realization that his idiot and almost blind son set the
pain…sorry…training setting to ten instead of zero. And what became of the dog, you ask? Oh he
was most disturbed by my little demonstration.
As I turned my head while I was lying on the ground I saw him leap back
and forth over the imaginary and invisible fence line. Wouldn’t be the last time a dog had the better
of me, but it certainly was the most painful.
So be smart, people. Say no to electricity!
No comments:
Post a Comment