Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Great Neutering

As you are aware, Mr. Duncan Doodle got neutered last week.

It was every bit as dramatic as it sounds.

I was required to deposit him in the neighborhood home for lost dreams at 8:00 in the morning. Mr. Doodle had no idea why we were there, even though I had tried to explain it to him through the use of such children's books as "You Were Smaller Than A Dot" and "Why Your Testicles Are Being Sawed Off."

NOT THAT WE KNOW WHAT TESTICLES ARE.

When we pulled up in the parking lot, Mr. Doodle bolted for the door. He could hear the animals inside and so, I assume, believed we had arrived at a McDonald's Playplace for puppies, which WHY DOES THAT NOT EXIST. But by the time we arrived inside and Mr. Doodle took inventory of the half dozen shaking terrified dogs sitting wide-eyed and horrified next to their owners, coupled with the warning calls of tortured animals in the back room, Mr. Doodle's entire attitude changed.

A woman with so many tattoos that she is technically a different race now screamed instructions to me over the sounds of backroom despair, telling me to sign 17 dozen forms acknowledging that my puppy was probably going to die from this. Or, at least never love me again.

She asked me if I wanted various other services, most of which were foreign to me. I made these decisions by looking at Mr. Doodle as though he was listening and considering the options for his own body.

And then, before I could back out, Skeletor appeared from behind a door, scooped Mr. Doodle out of my arms, blew cigarette smoke onto him, and slipped away. The entire time, Mr. Doodle's giant puppy eyes bore into me, weeping the words "I thought we were a family."

I drove to work, distracted and probably crying. At one point I thought a light had turned green and so I pulled into the middle of an intersection, and then had to reverse and sit among a dozen cars who had all watched the error.

1200 hours later, and at the end of the longest work day of my life, an unknown number rang my phone. Skeletor was on the other end, telling me it was "finished," like she was a hit-man I had hired to eliminate the leader of my Russian mafia rival group.

I drove at the speed of light and found myself in the waiting room only seconds later. The synthetically-ethnic tattoo woman delivered a 17-minute monologue about all of the ways I could kill my puppy if I didn't follow her every instruction. She responded to the dear-in-the-headlights look I presented back to her with a piece of paper supposedly summarizing everything she had said.

Then Skeletor walked out, carrying Mr. Doodle, a cone around his head so comically large that he looked like gerbil in comparison.

Mr. Doodle didn't respond to me when I held out my arms for him. "OUR RELATIONSHIP IS ALREADY DIFFERENT," I heard myself blurt. Skeletor comforted me by saying that Mr. Doodle was so stoned that he didn't even know what century it was anymore, which actually made me make an "awwwwwwe" sound because the thought that he ever knew what century it was seemed really cute to me.

And then we left.

I got Mr. Doodle into the house and discovered immediately that Mr. Doodle HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES. HATES! HATES!!! the cone of shame.

Pure and utter loathing.

He did not care at all how cute it was on him.



Every time I set him onto the floor and took one step away, he turned into a demon from Hell, thrashing, slamming his body against furniture, making screaming sounds of which I did not know dogs were capable.

When I could finally gather him into my arms, he would shake and cry for five minutes.

I tried everything. I put him on a leash and attempted to get him to take a few steps so he could see that the cone wasn't going to kill him. It didn't work.

I pet him and said encouraging things. It didn't work.

I even tried the cone on myself to show him that it was totally ok to wear. It didn't work. And it also made me hate the cone, too.

I took to google. And I found several forums of people asking for advice because their dog was "freaking out" with the cone on. But as I read these forums, the questions would say something like, "my dog is freaking out. He just sits there and doesn't move." And then people would encourage the questioner to just be patient and let the dog get used to it.

These internet dogs were not freaking out. They were freaked out, maybe. But what I was experiencing was unprecedented.

UNPRECEDENTED!

So, finally I drove Mr. Doodle to Petsmart and told a woman who smelled like cigarette smoke DO ALL ANIMAL PEOPLE SMOKE WHAT YEAR IS THIS what was happening with the cone. She helpfully located a blow-up airplane neck pillow for him, because I guess she thought I had said he was about to take a long flight.

It fit, so we took it home.



Mr. Doodle spent the remainder of the evening in a stoned daze. I sent Matt and Skylar a video of him so they could help me diagnose his level of consciousness. Skylar responded 30 minutes later with some video editing.


Before too long, I discovered that the neck pillow wasn't working, since Mr. Doodle is apparently training for Cirque du Soleil and so can bend his body in impossible ways to lick his crotch.

I was desperate. We couldn't go back to the cone. But I couldn't provide 24/7 supervision either. Because eating and TV.

And that's when @sherrypg and @stefikosama came to the rescue on Instagram.

They told me to try putting Mr. Doodle in a baby onesie.

When I first read this, I dismissed it outright. Because I'm not those kind of people.

But then, ten minutes later, both Matt and Skylar, who had each read the comments, texted me variations of "BUY HIM A ONESIE AND TEXT ME A PICTURE OR DON'T BOTHER EVER COMING HOME." And I was like, "I'm already home. By myself." And they were both like, "THAT'S NOT THE POINT."

And so, the very next morning. A Friday morning. A work day. I found myself carrying a puppy around Walmart. WALMART, you guys. He was wearing a neck brace. I was in sweats and a t-shirt I had slept in. It was 10:00. And I was in the baby section, holding onsies up to my puppy and saying things like "will this give you enough room in the crotch?"

We selected a baseball onesie that said "little slugger" on the chest.


We picked this one, mostly because it also came with pants.



Oh, and a hat.



THE HAT LOOKS LIKE A BASEBALL YOU GUYS!

And I know. You think I'm cruel. But y'all. Mr. Doodle freaking loves this onesie.

We have to take it off when he goes out to go potty and when he comes back inside, he RUNS to me when I pick up the onesie, wagging his whole little bum. And then he forcefully sticks his head through the hole when I hold it out.

Also, the onesie completely stops him from licking.

AND, the onesie was $3 cheaper than the stupid cone!


Granted, I felt like an idiot pushing him around in one of those race-car carts in the power tool section at Home Depot yesterday. But only because we forgot his hat when we left the house the outfit looked incomplete.

~It Just Gets Stranger

24 comments:

  1. He loves the onesie because it is keeping him WARM! And he thinks he looks cute in it!

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  2. This is the best thing currently on the entire Internet.

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  3. I bet "he wore it better" than any baby ever could.

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  4. Replies
    1. Yes. And I actually lol'd when I saw the outfit.

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    2. Yep, I did an actual laugh out loud lol too, not just one of those smile lol's

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  5. I knew I was put on this planet for a reason.

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  6. He does look super cute. But I have a question...do people in Utah regularly take their dogs into stores with them? Living in Wisconsin, I have never seen a dog in a store (aside from Petsmart). EVER. Please clear up this mystery for me.

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    1. I don't think people do in Utah in general. Growing up I don't remember ever seeing dogs in stores. But Salt Lake City is a super liberal hippie dog-loving bra-burning land, so people treat their puppies like spirit animals here. It was strange to me at first, but now I love it. Because every time I need to go to the store I know I'm going to see about 200 dogs! A lot of the stores encourage it, too. Home Depot and West Elm employees will actually track us down in the store and ask if they can give the dog a treat.

      PS--these are non-food stores. I've never seen a dog in the grocery store. I have seen dogs in coffee shops, but people usually tie them up outside.

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    2. "But Salt Lake City is a super liberal hippie dog-loving bra-burning land"

      I seriously doubt anyone outside of the state of Utah has ever or will ever describe SLC in this way.

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    3. Dogs are in every store here in Phoenix (yes, I've even seen them in the grocery store, although not as often). Our home in Minnesota was the same way - dogs in every store. A quick PSA, because I have family members who don't see eye-to-eye with me on this and it drives me crazy: Sometimes the dogs get left in the car, whenever there's a store that the owner decides to leave them behind on the list of errands. In Phoenix, parked cars are death-traps (literally) and quickly reach temps well over 100 degrees in the summer. Other areas of the country don't get quite as hot as Phoenix, but temperatures in the car can still get so much higher than one may think - have you ever had to sit in a waiting car for even five or ten minutes on a sunny day? Yeah, it's really no fun. So not that you would ever, but please don't take him on errands and then leave him behind in the car :)

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  7. You may now shut down this blog. You have reached the end result.

    I have actual tears.

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  8. Mr. Doodle in a onesie needs to break the entire internet.

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  9. I've been on the internet all day, in a very bad mood from the surgery I just recently had. This post saved my day (maybe not my stitches) but wow, who'd have thought it'd be a puppy in a onesie?! Now we all know. Puppies. Onesies.

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  10. I think you could easily make a Mr. Doodle-in-a-onesie calendar and make big bucks. It would give him a chance to show off his versatility.

    (Hopefully you have seen Zoolander or that will make less sense.)

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    Replies
    1. I would totally buy this calendar

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  11. My ovaries are melting at Duncan in a onesie, AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE OVARIES

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  12. We did something similar for our puppy (he's 8, but will always be my puppy) last year, when we had a growth removed from his back right leg. The cone of shame clearly devastated him. AND we were going on vacation about 5 days after the procedure, so I wanted him to be able to halfway enjoy his time at daycare while we were away!

    So onesie it was.

    I determined he was about the same weight and length of an 8 - 12 month old human, and I bought a 2 pack of adorable onesies that had little short legs (they had to be long enough to cover his wound, but I didn't want footie pj's, so it was a tough combo to find!), and one was all gray, and the other was striped, and had little bees stitched onto the front, which was so cute, I wanted to teach him to walk around on his hind legs, so everyone could see.

    The relief he immediately expressed when in the onesie and able to reach his pubis with his face again was IMMEASURABLE. Even though his twig was covered, didn't matter. He just needed to feel it through the fabric to be a happy little man again!

    Such a great solution! Plus, when the Target check out person asked me if I needed a gift receipt for the onesies, and I was able to say, "No, they're for my dog, actually, and if he doesn't like them, I don't care," my life improved by about 10,000 points.

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    Replies
    1. Obviously you need to post pictures of this on Imzy.

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  13. I cried semi hysterical tears of laughter at those photos of him in his outfit. Amazing.

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  14. Try finding a onesie to fit a 90 lb lab mix dog.

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  15. You can totally put this on backwards so we can see the design. I'd appreciate it.

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