Too Liberal with His "Markers"

Recent news items have shown that as an American, I’m probably not responsible for much of anything anymore and one of the few things I might be responsible for is the fact that I am no longer responsible. That might be a good thing because as I see us, I’m beginning to see a population that is about as responsible as this dog I've got at my feet right now and he’s wearing a diaper, a “safety net” if you will. We don’t talk about his right to not wear it, because we made that decision for him based on his past history. He’d been way too liberal with his “markers” on his trips through the house and so we had to “rein” him in, so to speak, with a mandate passed by us, his caregivers. 

He doesn't seem to care about the exact wording of the mandate, what it was that caused him to have to wear the “safety net” and since he can’t read he’ll never know exactly what’s in it…we just put it on him and because he’s only a dog, likes to eat (fed by us), and is not big enough or cares enough to do anything about it, he follows the mandate. There is no vote here either because he is simply not smart enough to vote. We are his benevolent “federal government” you might say. Well, we felt that we knew what was best for him and since we were the ones feeding him, we got to choose and we chose the Doggie Depends “safety net”.

Oh, that’s the way it goes you know, whoever provides the food and the “safety net” becomes the decider. I will admit he was a little confused at first. The first time that “safety net” went on he was like, “Ok, so let me get this straight. If I want to eat, watch Big Bird and the animal channel and get my rabies shot, I wear this. If I pass on the free food, live outside and dodge squirrels all day I can take the other option. We chose the “net” for him but he really didn't seem to mind giving over what tiny bit of self-control he had to begin with. 

As the administrator of the mandate I will admit I was a little disappointed, even though the house smells better. I would have preferred he behaved like an American Bull Dog, Pit Bull or some other independent breed. You know, “Me, wear that!? Don’t think so. I’ll take my chances with the squirrels!” The sad thing is he’s become dependent on the “safety net”, lies around the house all day and since Big Bird is only on once a day, stays depressed and eats too much. Of course since we put the mandate on him in the first place I guess you could say we’re responsible for his depression so we were mandated to pay for the trips to the vet for counseling in mental health, diet and did I mention he has retained a doggie representative who comes by once in a while to make sure we are following the mandates given by the counselors?

If this sounds familiar, it should. And it didn't take long and it sort of crept up on the poor pooch as he didn't really see it coming. I suppose one could say that if he’d only watched where he wet this would never have happened but that would have required some responsibility on his part and it just wasn't there. So you’re probably wondering exactly what his responsibilities are at this point? Well, he still gets the paper each day…still barks when someone comes up the driveway and whines when his food bowl is empty. If we want more than that out of him we’re going to have to have him re-trained. 

Did I mention the house smells better?