Xylo stands there, staring out the window like he’s a watchdog. I guess he is, just not in the way you’re thinking. He’s a sight hound, so he likes to stare at stuff—blowing leaves, the neighbor’s cat, rodents with bushy tails. Just stares at them, like Medusa though none of his glares ever make them turn to stone. Occasionally he whimpers over it, crying out to the heavens because God hath cursed all dogkind with the invention of glass, separating them from that which they most desire.
I call his name over and over again but either he doesn’t know it or doesn’t care. I throw treats at him, some hit the glass of the door’s full frame window, some hit him and bounce to the floor where they’ll sit, ignored, until I pick them up because having treats all over the floor reminds me of my parent’s house where the carpet looks like a gravel parking lot except the gravel is actually dog biscuit crumbs.
I cease fire utterly defeated. I spent a damn fortune on all kinds of dog treats; stuff that looks like fruit snacks, designer bone shaped biscuits, and bland brown nuggets that smell like jerky and vinegar. Who comes up with this stuff? Does a dog really give a crap if the treats look like apples and carrots and beans? When was the last time a dog went vegan? They should make the treats look like cat turds, dead mice, and vomit because my parent’s dogs loved eating that stuff. And why color them in corresponding fruit and vegetable colors? Aren’t dogs color blind? Grayscale all of it. Hell, it might actually work better that way. I mean, Cliff Bars look like squares of sludge and I eat them just fine, and aren’t people paying ridiculous sums of cash to drink coffee made from java beans that animals crap out? Applying the same advertising tactics to dog treats seems like a no brainer. Treats that look like sludge and are made from crap are probably something a dog would eat anyway—not a bean or carrot. And, according to human logic, if it looks like shit it’s probably rare and/or healthy for you. Just call it a delicacy and it will sell. A win win!
I honestly don’t care what it looks like. I just want Xylo to find a treat that he’ll kill to keep eating. I want to know his addiction treat. The one that will get him to do backflips for another hit of because, as of this moment, he wont walk anywhere near the staircase. He’s terrified of steps—literally scared stiff—and I need something to help me get him over that. I need dog crack.
These last few days I’ve walked him up to the base of the steps and he just stands there like a statue, rigid and trembling. Oh I fawned all over him like kid’s daytime television host: “you’re okay, you’re a good-boy, you’re doing so well, you can do this, I believe in you, lets sing a song about sharing…” But every time I praise and stick some motivational goody in front of him he moves his head away like it’s poison and I’m the bastard forcing it on him.
I took him off the steps and brought out the clicker trainer. First I had get him used the clicks which meant I had stuff him so full of treats that the next crap he took looked like a road paver. It was all marbled up in the same funky color schemes of the actual treats (yet another reason to greyscale the operation). Clicker acquainted, I put Xylo back on the steps and tried to walk his petrified form up again, putting treats in front of him, clicking like a madman, praising like a camp counselor. But he wouldn’t eat them now, even though I fractured my finger on the clicker and went hoarse with atta-boyz—the treats where meaningless.
Then I tried putting his dog bowl on the steps. Then I tried putting all his toys there. Then his bed. Then slices of cold cuts. Then—and why the hell not—real carrots, beans, and apples…. Nothing. Not a damn thing. The Dog will not eat any thing that has been contaminated with steps. They are Satan to him. In fact, now I can’t even walk him towards the steps. It’s as if the steps have this event horizon around them and if he walks to close he’ll pulled in by the gravity and die. Xylo walks the perimeter of the room from a safe orbit outside the stairwell, and no amount of begging or treat offering or praising will get him to do otherwise. Lashing a leash to him and guiding him results in a petrified dog statue being drug around by it’s bare, scooting ass.
Trouble is, I work in my basement. If I want the dog down their with me, I have to pick him up and carry him down. All 80lbs of him—which is more like 84 with all the treats I’ve fed him. But he wont come to me know, he knows what I want him to do. And I don’t want to come to him. I’m the man of this house, dammit! I may pick up your crap, but I refuse to pick you up every time I want to go to another level in my own home! Inpass, thy name be stairs.