That second night, looking under and through my spread legs, I watched Mary manoeuvre, with obvious distaste, my fresh turd into the poo bag. She can't be enjoying this too much, I thought, as I felt her swipe the cool, astringent wet wipe down my ass crack, causing my asshole to give a reflexive pucker, and me to jump slightly as much from the sudden cool shock of it as from her casual invasion of my private space. But the words 'private space' no longer applied. Not in the world of a pet play puppy.
'Stand up, Rover.'
'Woof,' I promptly replied, on my best doggie behaviour. One woof equals 'yes.'
I lifted myself upright, back on my two hind paws, half man and half dog, ready to return to the house. I half hoped, the man half of me that is, that I would get to sleep on my dog bed tonight instead of the crate. I had spent my first night as a dog in the crate and had slept poorly. It was a cramped, confined space, and the folded rough blanket underneath me was scratchy and ticklish. If I got to lie in the dog bed, I could stretch out and move around. More importantly, it would feel like a real bed.
'Open your mouth,' ordered Mary, still holding my leash, her arm through the loop while she tied a knot in the top of the poo bag.
The evening had, earlier, taken a turn for the worst. Following an afternoon stuffed in the dog crate, I had decided to let my wife know that I had had enough of the pet play experiment. Technically it could be regarded as the second day of my pet life, since we had started late on Friday and it was now late Saturday, but in reality I had yet to clock up twenty-four hours as Mary's pet play puppy.
My little suggestion, given in plain English, was that we should give up the whole pet play thing there and then. Didn't go down well. Mary gave me a long sermon in reply reminding me what I signed up for freely and why I had to go through with it. The lecture continued while I chomped through my evening meal of a tin of dog food served up in the metal dog bowl placed in the corner of the room. Mary still hadn't finished lecturing me as she led me out to perform for the first time, that most humiliating act; taking a dump while naked, bound and helpless, in front of my wife. Which I have just managed to do. Humiliating doesn't quitter capture the level of degradation involved.
Given her earlier outrage at my suggestion that we call the whole thing off, I had decided that smart thing to do, for now, was to act the good obedient doggie. So I complied unquestioningly, opening my mouth wide, prepared to suffer the worst humiliation yet. Mary quickly placed the knotted top of the poo bag in front of my mouth.
'You might as well get involved in cleaning up you own mess,' she said. 'Now, hold the bag with your mouth, like a good, obedient little doggie who fetches whatever his owner asks him to fetch. We'll get you to play lots of fetch games later. You can regard this as practice.'
That didn't seem so bad, given that I had thought for a minute that I was going to be made actually eat shit. I carefully clamped my teeth around the knotted plastic loops at the top of the bag, making sure to keep my grip above the knot and my lips well away from any contact with the poo bag.
We set off for the house, a sorry little parade of two. Mary in front, holding my leash, me walking behind her on my two doggie hind feet, my front paws clipped to rings on either side of my dog collar, and the poo bag swinging heavily to and fro, its soft, warm contents banging disgustingly against my chin with each step until we reached the back door.
'Drop.' She ordered, holding the garbage can lid open. And I did, delighted to be rid of the nasty bundle. She looked as glad to be rid of it as I was. Surely, I persuaded myself, she can't want to keep this up for another seven weeks. Why would she? Who would want to be stuck with the disgusting job of picking up an adult's poo for the next seven weeks? I decided I would wait another day and again try and talk her around to ending the pet play experiment. So what if she'll claim my speech will have caused another month to be added to my life as a dog. She'll break, long before that, I was sure.
It was back into dog crate for the second night. While unclipping my front paws from my dog collar, Mary made no mention of when I might be allowed sleep on my doggie bed. I looked forlornly towards where it sat on the floor on the other side of the back breakfast room. I hadn't thought much of the old mattress when I hauled it out of storage, but compared with another night in the crate, it seemed the height of luxury. Maybe Mary would hold out the promise of a night on the doggie bed as something I could aim for. Something I'd have to earn the right, or privilege, to use. I can hear that sermon now; how dogs have no rights. That owners may choose to reward good behaviour, but that I hadn't yet shown much by way of good behaviour yet yada, yada, yada. You can fill in the blanks yourself.
What came next was something I should have seen coming, really. Mary likes to outsource difficult or nasty jobs. Clearly I had become a problem that needed outsourcing.
'Now, Rover,' she said, snapping the cage door latch shut behind me. 'A little heads up about tomorrow.'
Here we go again, I thought, calmly, as I tried to settle myself sideways in the cramped space, knees hunched up near my chin. It now seemed like I was going to be given a little pep talk each night about what doggie novelty to expect the next day. Last night she told me about scatter feeding. Maybe her little booklet on dog training said try not to give your pet surprises. Give them time to adjust. Was that Mary's little plan then, I wondered? She'd give me a little bedtime talk each night before I settle down to sleep. Give me something to look forward to by announcing in advance the next initiative she had designed to spice up my pet life. Best to listen carefully, I decided. Would have cocked my doggie ears if I had them.
'I've come to the conclusion that you need some real training to get properly into the puppy play mindset. An obedient, loyal and devoted pet is what we are talking about here, Rover,' she said. No doubt she read about it in her little dog training book. Train them young and they'll stay trained for life. Or something like that.
'The fact that you repeatedly communicated as a human instead of barking earlier this evening just proved to me that you need some professional help to make this puppy play thing work for you,' she said, all sweetness and light.
I decided not to woof my agreement or disagreement with her assessment. Better wait and see where this is going, thought I didn't like the sound of it. Was it a dog psychologist or some such that she had in mind? Let sleeping dogs lie, I thought, sniggering at my own private doggie joke.
'It's not funny, Rover. I'm serious. If you can't stay in dog mode for even twenty-four hours, how are you going to manage for the full time of your dog life? I think a different approach is needed here. Don't you agree?'
'Woof,' I replied, because, clearly, a woof was being demanded. I did agree that a different approach was needed. The 'different approach' I had in mind was to stop the puppy play thing dead. Right then. Since my attempts to convince her to do just that earlier in the evening had failed miserably, I knew there was no point in trying to make the same argument again. I just had to accept that Mary was operating in her 'if we said we are going to do it, then we are going to do it' mode. For her, it was just a matter of finding a better way to do it. Mary's not a quitter.
