My Prank War With The Dog

My dog is getting too cleaver for his own good.

One night, about a month ago, I took my dog to the park at the end of the street. He had a new collar and it didn't fit quite right. And that son of a bitch Dr. Charles Winston Kilroy knew that. Why? Because he's a doctor. You know that band Dr. Dog? Chuck probably loves them.

Anyway, that night, he runs full force down a hill and when I go to pull on the leash, he does a spin move on me and runs backwards, so that the collar comes up to his head. As I run towards him politely yelling swear words and threats, he jumps backwards out of his collar. He stands that for a moment staring at me and the collar and then I spend the next twenty minutes chasing my dog through a playground of merrily screaming and hysterically laughing kids, trying to keep them calm like Keanu Reeves in Speed.

Now, last night, my dog and I were playing a game of tag at the park like we sometimes do. He's still on a leash, but the game is that he runs toward me and tries to dodge my hands. If he's tagged, he loses. If he gets by me, he wins. It's kind of like stoner bullfighting.

So, Chuck runs circles around me and I move the leash around my head like a maypole, so it doesn't get wrapped around my legs. As I'm swinging it around my head, Chuck makes a quick sprint to the left, so I end up punching myself in the head with the leash handle pretty goddamn hard. As I get dizzy and start mumbling incoherency, Chuck just stands there watching me stumble.

I think he planned it. My dog and I have officially entered into a game of pranks. And I'm gonna win.