While my friend Brandon’s parents are out of town, I have agreed to let their dogs out, bring their mail in, etc. They live right across the street from me, so it’s not like I have to stay in a strange house, and the dogs only need to be let out once in the morning, once when I get home from work, and once before I go to bed. On the surface, this sounds like a very simple task. On the surface

One dog, Sammy, is a very old, VERY good dog. She stays in her yard, comes and goes as she’s told, and can be left to roam free in the basement and the yard. She knows where her yard is. She listens. She’s predictable. When it comes to dogs, predictable is good, except when they do funny things like chase hoses and stuff like that. Sammy is too old to chase hoses.

The other dog, Jazz (Named before they got her) was given to Brandon by a friend. Brandon’s roommates decided that House (Capitalized because that’s what House’s name is) and Jazz couldn’t cohabitate. Apparently, Gibson- who has bitten a couple of people, including residents of House and me, and shits all over the place- can stay, but Jazz must go. So, Jazz has been relinquished to a kennel in Brandon’s parents’ home. I, along with any reasonable person, feel that no dog, ESPECIALLY an active breed like a Lab, should EVER have to spend most of its day in a cage. Labs have to run. If they do not run, they misbehave. Especially adolescent dogs.

Case in point, Jazz. Let’s take a trip, you and me. A trip to the parents’ house at 7:20 this morning. I figured 10 minutes would be PLENTY of time to get the dogs out, let them have a BM, and get them back inside. Technically, I was right. I say technically because the mayhem didn’t start until Jazz was back in the house. After Jazz did her business, I put her back in the house and went back outside to call Sammy in. She had wandered to the backyard, where she can’t hear me calling from the garage door. I took Sammy down to the basement, checked her water and food, and gave her a cookie.

When I went back upstairs, I was greeted by Jazz running full steam out of the garage into the kitchen with something in her mouth; a something I assumed was a shoe from the garage. She likes to run with shoes in her mouth. She blew past me, through the kitchen, and into the living room. After several laps around the living room, she came back through the kitchen running directly towards me. As I crouched in preparation to grab her, I saw what she had in her mouth. Apparently, at some point while I was outside, she had grabbed the loaf of bread off the kitchen counter. The dog was running through the house, carrying the bread, dragging her leash, and running into everything she could find. I finally wrestled the bread away from her, which at this point looked more like flatbread with drool all over the bag. Then she took another lap through the house.

When she reached the basement portion of her lap, I got on the stairs and closed the basement door. I then went down the stairs and grabbed a cookie in preparation to lure her back into the kennel. While she may be Satan incarnate, Jazz is not a dumb dog. She’s figured out this “Get her in the cage by throwing a cookie in the back” thing. She definitely wasn’t going for it today. Thankfully, there’s a fairly narrow path through the basement. I was able to grab her by the nape of her neck mid-stride. I led her over to the cage, where she promptly laid down and rolled on her back, making it virtually impossible to put her in. I took this opportunity to take the leash and choker off. Up until this point, she had been alternating between carrying the leash in her mouth and dragging it behind her. My opportunity to take the choker off was Jazz’s opportunity to wriggle from my grip. Then she took several more laps through the basement.

I managed to catch her again, nearly breaking my finger in the ring on her collar. By this point, I’m running 10 minutes late for work, and this stupid bitch has just about sunk the boat. The whole time, Sammy is staring at me and Jazz, almost as to say, “What the fuck is wrong with that stupid dog? Why won’t she sit the fuck still?” I grabbed Jazz by the nape with one hand, and used the other hand on her haunches to shove her across the floor into her cage.

This process I get to repeat for the next three days. Morning, evening, and night. It’s a good thing I’m such a patient, easy-going person.