Dog - Day After Day

It's Wednesday afternoon and I've been locked in the dog pen since morning. Mooching around the ten foot by ten foot by four and a half foot high wire mesh pen on all fours. In the doghouse, in effect. I've been a naughty doggie it would seem. Dared to question Mary, my owner's, calculation of the length of time that she will keep me trapped in this stupid pet play game. Just as I wondered when I might see Mary, in order to apologise profusely and get back in her good books, the back door of the house opened and Mary came out. She was followed by a younger woman.

They both stepped briskly over towards the dog pen. Mary held some lumpy bunch of fabric in her hand. She was speaking to the visitor as they approached. I could overhear them. They were talking about me, in that offhand way, like I wasn't there, or that it didn't matter that I could hear. As if I were just a dog.

'..and this is the pet dog that I told you about, Maria. You'll be looking after him. That means feeding him. Cleaning up after him. Taking him out for a walk every day. Usually he is no problem, but sometimes you have to be firm with him.'

I imagined this is what an animal in a cage in the zoo feels like as the public drift by and stop and look, in the casual and disinterested way, at the specimen in the cage. Stuck in my wire mesh enclosure. The low mesh roof of the cage forcing me to stay squatting down on all fours. The two people on the other size of the wire standing tall, towering over me, talking about me, yet ignoring the real me. The real me that was inside the cage, the real me that was trapped inside the dog suit. They couldn't see the real me. To them, I just wasn't there.

'Useless! Come over here and sit,' Mary ordered sharply as she came up to the wire mesh. Just showing off, I decided. Showing how she can order her useless dog of a husband around, and how quickly he obeys. Impressing this Maria, this potential house cleaner/dog minder. Showing her how to handle this human pet with authority. How to make it respect you. I wasn't going to prove her wrong. Not now anyway. Already in enough trouble with my owner.

'Woof,' I answered briskly and obediently trotted across in front of them, where I adopted the regulation 'sit' position. My hunkered knees spread wide, arms down to the ground either side, my balls and cock lewdly displayed for all to see. My head up attentively, looking eagerly at my owner through my doggie head harness, but also aware I was the subject of this Maria person's judgement. Would she take this weird role on board as part of her job, or would she walk?

Maria was trying to rate the job, no doubt. Figure out how much effort she'd have to put in to this task. She'd probably like to have two or three other cleaning jobs going at the same time. The cogs turning in her mind. What to make of it? A grown man on all fours, extra-long arms, dressed in a dog suit and doggie head harness, his balls and cock, thinly disguised in dark mesh, hanging between his legs, a big black tail sticking out the back from his rump.

While she eyed me up through the wire mesh of the dog pen in a calculating sort of way, I felt my cock begin to stiffen and lift before her gaze. It was due to the utter humiliation of being so exposed, to be casually looked at and inspected by some young woman in off the street. And having to just squat before her, so nakedly and wantonly displayed. The first tingling, stinging zaps hit my swelling cock and I convulsively jerked in place, still holding the 'sit' position. To Maria it probably looked like I was trying to fuck fresh air, or put on some pathetic demonstration of sexual prowess for her benefit. She looked questioningly at Mary.

'Don't worry, Maria. It just means he likes you. The dog is not allowed to have sex. He gets excited easily.'

Maria returned her gaze to me as a stronger zap hit and my erect penis bounced stiffly in place. It looked like I was having a dry ejaculation or something, but she focused on my face, looking into my eyes, ignoring my pathetic needy cock.

I guessed that Maria really needed this job. It was probably the first bite she got since she distributed the flyers last night. Mary and I had talked about it this morning, it was only lunchtime now and here she was.

She appeared to be a sensible and practical type. The sort that would make sure that there would be no doggie screw-ups on her watch. If she was, as I suspected, a recent arrival from the other side of the Rio Grande, she'd be delighted to take any sort of paying job. She'd make sure to properly complete anything she's asked to do, even wiping the bum of a grown man dressed as a dog. She'd probably heard that these gringos got up to some strange things. She was prepared for that. She'd move on to something better as soon as she could. In the meantime, it'd do as a start.

I could sense Maria arriving at this conclusion, deciding that this, while far along the scale of strangeness, was doable. Making up her mind, she turned to Mary, nodding her consent.

'I can do this, no problem,' she said calmly. 'What name you call him, this dog?'

'I've decided to call him 'Useless.'

So that's it, I thought, glumly, Mary really is going to stick me with that horrible name.

Maria was looking me in the eye again, holding me in her gaze. She nodded at me slowly. Willing me to submit to her position over me, to accept her for what she was now, that she ranked above me in the pecking order, that she was someone who could boss me around.

'Hi, Usted. You be good dog for Maria?'

'Woof,' I replied, looking back up at her before looking down and away. The doggie sign of submission. Her eyes were hard. She knew she was dominating me with that look. I was getting the feeling that this lady would take no shit.

I glanced over at Mary. Time to do my bit of grovelling. 'I'm sorry about this morning. I shouldn't have gotten so worked up about nothing.'

'Well you did, Useless. But good that you can recognise that fact, now that you have had a couple of hours to think about it. '

I knew I was treading on dangerous ground here, but bravely decided to give Mary a steer on changing my doggie name. I wanted something I could live with yet was still a sufficiently put down name to satisfy her wishes.

'Is Useless really going to be my name? I mean, most people won't recognise it as a dog's name. There are lots of generic dog names you could use, like Spot, or Rex, or Champ, or Lucky.'

'When I look at you I don't see a Champ or a Lucky. I see an Awkward, or a Clumsy, or, best of all; a Useless. I already told you this morning that is what I shall call you. My decision, note. Not yours to question. Yet you are still doing it. You are truly useless as a dog. Will you never learn? Get used to your name. It's Useless.'

Mary was sticking to her guns, At least she didn't seem too worked up about my attempt at changing her mind, despite the severe put down of her reply. She briefly opened the cage door to throw the fabric bundle in my direction. It bounced off my chest and landed between my knees. A furry dog toy. Nice.

'You can play with it, or chew on it. Might help pass the time till you go asleep tonight.'

'Woof. Thanks. I will.'

'See what I mean Maria,' I could hear Mary saying, as they turned to go back into the house. 'He can be a bit difficult at times. You just have to be firm with him.'

Locked inside the pen, I watched as Mary and Maria walked back towards the house. Mary talking, gesticulating, issuing instructions, no doubt. Maria still nodding, taking it all in, or understanding only half of it. Hard to know. Mary probably saying he's easy to manage, really no trouble. Probably telling her that she can ignore me most of the time. 'Just leave him in the pen and get on with cleaning the house,' she'd say. Something like that.

Age wise, I'd guessed Maria was in her mid-twenties. Strong and stocky, a bit of a barrel shape, full thighs. Agricultural background I'd guess. Used to heavy lifting and hard work. Used to handling animals, making them do what you wanted them to do. Straight black hair, parted in the middle, medium length, touching her shoulders. Her face was classic Mexican; brown eyes, sallow skin, and full luscious lips. Not that I'd be getting anywhere near them. The back door closed, leaving me alone to ponder my new situation.

Fine by me if Maria calls me 'Usted' rather than 'Useless.' Makes more sense to her and I certainly prefer it. But from Mary's perspective, I'm definitely 'Useless' from now on, it seems. And to think that I felt 'Rover' was a bit of a put down. Sure 'Rover' was a constant reminder that I was a dog, but that was as far as it went. 'Useless' is a daily, constant, reminder that, as far as Mary is concerned, I'm not only a dog, but I'm also a good for nothing dog. 'Useless' is an insult.

I had plenty of time to think about my situation since being locked in the pen after our morning disagreement. I accepted that I'd handled it badly. I shouldn't have been so pernickety. We could have had a grand conversation about this and that. But at the same time, it was Mary who had chosen to escalate a minor query about the length of the pet play into a major blow-up.

Focussing on the positives, I decided this was a sign that Mary was getting fed up of the whole pet play game too. And that's a good thing, because, if she wants a way out, she will find a way out. That's her 'can do' thing. The obvious way out is to give up on whole pet play business right now. But, knowing Mary, she needs to find a way to do that without losing face. In any case, she won't even begin to think about ending it until after the barbeque on Saturday. That's because she's told the neighbours about our pet play game and said they would see me there as her dog. So no way that's not going to happen. That box will be ticked.

By mid-afternoon, following hours of being stuck in the pen with nothing to do, I was fed up. I certainly wasn't going to play with the furry animal toy the Mary had flung at me. It was a pink and blue fluffy shark with an open shark mouth that was all red inside. It had some sort of firm core. No doubt so that dogs could chew on it. I ignored it.

Exercise is the answer to boredom, I decided. Just like they do in prison to pass the time. I flexed my fingers inside their dog mitts. Lifting them off the stilt grips, rolling my wrists. The stilt extensions were worse than just having simple glove like mitts when it came to trying to using my hands. When I brought my hand, or the place where my hand was inside the extended mitt, up to my face, was like rubbing my face with a thick pipe covered in black furry nylon. There was no sense of touching yourself.

The fact that my arms had been trapped in there for almost 5 days couldn't be a good thing. I took up the 'sit' position and started lifting my arms over my head, they soon banged into the low mesh roof of the pen. Instead I tried swinging my arms horizontally, over and back. I had completed about twenty arm swings when Mary came out of the back door and up to the dog pen. She was all smiles.

'I have a treat for you, Useless. Come here,' she said, pushing the tip of a frankfurter through the mesh while holding the other end in her fingers. I hadn't eaten any meat since last Friday. This was really a treat. I badly wanted to grab it between my teeth and pull it into the pen. But what if she's just toying with me? What if she pulled it away just as I reached out for it? It also means I would be acknowledging that my name was now 'Useless.' I hesitated.

'Come on, Useless. It's a peace offering. I was a bit hasty with you this morning. And you have apologised for questioning me. This is my way of making up. Come on. Eat your treat. There's a good boy.'

Tough call. I had my pride, but, since she was just going to keep calling me 'Useless' anyway, why miss out on a tasty treat? And if I refused to take the treat she'd probably give me no evening feed, out of spite. So I moved over to the wire mesh and reached out my mouth towards the sausage. I was half ready to suffer the humiliation of being made a fool, but I still did it.

'Good Boy.' Mary cajoled me, pushing the frankfurter fully in through the mesh and letting go. It dropped to the ground before I got my mouth around it. The doggie head harness limited my vision a bit and maybe that was why I missed it. Or maybe she just wanted to force me to eat it off the ground while she was watching. I didn't care. I just wanted the frankfurter. I was so sick of crunching dry, gritty lumps of weird fish and chicken mix flavoured kibble until they turned to a sticky mess in my mouth. The prospect of enjoying a nice tasty bit of sausage meat was heavenly. I didn't want to rush it, to gulp it down. I'd prefer to make it last, savour each bite. So I looked back up at her and decided to play nice.

'Woof. Thank you. I'm really going to enjoy that and take my time eating it.

'That's good, Useless. Now, before you get down to eating, let's me tell you how I'm going to improve your dog life.'

'Woof.' This sounds good.

'First off, I decided to stop the aversion therapy. I don't think it was working anyway. I'll even switch off you cock cage shocker now,' she said, fiddling with the app on her phone. 'There, it's done. But the ball zapper is still on, just to warn you. I'll use it if I have to. Okay?

'Woof. That's fine by me. I really do appreciate you stopping the aversion therapy. It was misery.'

'Well, life is never a bed of roses, even for a dog. But that's one thing you can forget about. And...big bonus; I'll even let you hump my leg occasionally, starting tomorrow morning. How's that sound, Useless?

'Woof. That's great.' I nervously felt my cock already beginning to grow and swell at the thought of a bit of action, stretching against its mesh enclosure. No tingles, no zaps, no shocks followed. Phew!

'It's not as if you have been denied sex for months, Useless. As I recall, you gave yourself a good time last Friday night, and we are only at Wednesday afternoon now. You can't be suffering from blue balls yet'

'I know. But it's great that you are going to allow me a bit of domestic doggie sex action,' I quickly replied, laying it on thick. I so want to keep her good mood going. Put this morning's spat behind us. 'Humping is very much part of the pet play thing, so we should try it. You never know. I might fall in love with your leg. I might even get to go all the way with your leg.'

'Very funny, Useless. Or, I might zap your balls if I think you are getting too much enjoyment out of it. But we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Give you something to look forward to while you are lying in the dog house tonight.'

'Woof. By the way, I've been wondering how I should address you when I am talking to you. I know you don't want me to use your own name. How about Madam, or Mistress?'

'No. I am your owner and you are my dog. That's our relationship. So if you must call me something say 'My Owner.' That will remind you that I am your owner. And, seeing as I am your owner and you are my dog, I can call you whatever I want. Ha, ha.'

'Woof.' I felt that was better than nothing. Better to have an agreed form of address. Not knowing what to call the person you are speaking to felt strange. It stilted my side of the conversation, at least. Of course, Mary, as she pointed out, had no such difficulty.

'Now more good news, Useless. I'm changing the rules of the fetch game. First. I am increasing the time I allow you to get the ball back to me from twenty to thirty seconds. And second. If you do get it back to me in that time, you will earn a two weeks reprieve off your dog life, instead of one. You like that, Useless?'

'Woof. That's really terrific,' I replied, and I'm sure it was. But I was finding it hard to concentrate on what she was saying, because of her constant use of 'useless' when referring to me. It had started bugging me since she'd first used it when she was showing me to Maria. I'd tried, nicely, to get her to use some other name then, but she'd just blown me away. It's just hard to ignore such a total put down, to pretend it's just a name and doesn't really mean anything. Because it does. It means she thinks I'm useless and is letting everyone else know it, like Maria, like all our neighbours at the barbeque on Saturday, if she gets the chance.

My resentment grew each time Mary kept sticking me with the 'Useless' label. And she was doing it constantly. But I needed to pay attention. Mary had more good news.

'I was a bit short with you when you went out beyond the back yard boundary yesterday, Useless. I remembered afterwards that I had said you could wander anywhere whenever I left the pen door open. I just got worried when I couldn't see you in the yard. I thought you might have run away or something. Silly me.'

'Ha, ha. No. I mean, woof, woof. I was just exploring.' Does this woman have sixth sense, I wondered nervously.

'Well, I have the solution. I'm going to get a tracker tomorrow and attach it to your collar or your head harness. That way I'll always know exactly where you are, and needn't worry. You can feel free to wander about and explore as far as you like.'

'Woof. That's great,' I responded dutifully, despite knowing well that wouldn't really feel free when she 'knew exactly where I was all the time.'

'So are we friends again, Useless?'

'Woof,' I replied, even as the constant 'Useless' name calling totally spoiled the good vibe that all these improved conditions should have given me. I really wanted to tell Mary to stop calling me Useless. It was just grinding away at my sense of self-worth. All I could hear her saying was; you're useless, you're useless, you're useless, over and over. And the fact that I seemed to be just accepting it, implied that I was going along with the fact that I was useless.

It was making me feel negative and suspicious. Maybe all this 'let's be friends again' thing was just another trick on her part. How could Mary claim she wanted to be friends, yet persist in calling me useless? Was she was just building my hopes up with all these improvements in my living conditions in order to smash them later with some hidden twist?

There was no point in trying to object to my new name once again. No point in coming right out and tell her why I hated it. I'd already tried easing her away from using that name when she was showing me to Maria. To revisit the issue would be interpreted as more than arguing; outright rebellion, maybe. No, I decided. Not the way to go. Besides, I needed to pay attention. Mary was still giving out good news.

'We'll play fetch under the new rules at lunchtime tomorrow. Get things started. You'll get to have two goes. If you are lucky both times you will have earned four weeks off your dog life by tomorrow afternoon. Nice thought, eh, Useless? Even if you were really useless at the game last time.'

'Woof. That would be fantastic.' I said, still trying to sound enthusiastic. But I was now very close to screaming at Mary over this 'Useless' label. It was clear to me that she was deliberately trying provoke me into doing or saying something stupid me by constantly calling me Useless. She usen't insert Rover into every sentence when I was called Rover. If she wanted to get a reaction from me, she was going to be disappointed. I wasn't going to play her game, instead I decided on a deflection. Get us talking about something general. Have a harmless conversation about anything. I went for it.

'But may I ask you, My Owner, is there anything interesting going on in the world? Living as a dog for the last five days, I'm losing touch with current affairs. Haven't heard a news bulletin or seen any TV.'

'Well that does it, Useless. Of all the stupid things for a dog to say they are curious about. Who ever heard of a dog thinking about current affairs? That's the thanks I get for trying so hard to be nice to you.'