BARKING MAD: "New Year Ruffolutions"

BARKING MAD

The Adventures of Napolean, a Very Anxious Therapy Dog

"New Year Ruffolutions"

Napolean the Very Anxious Therapy Dog had a ruff time on New Years Eve. He was forced to accompany me, his Very Anxious Human, to a small party. At first it was scary for Napolean, because he is a Very Anxious Dog, but then, it became rather boring. Quickly, however, Napolean found himself extremely drawn to the large amount of delicious-smelling food on the party table - in particular, some greasy meatballs impaled on small wooden skewers. Napolean had been strictly forbidden to investigate these tantalising dishes. But Napolean was smart. He knew that he only needed to wait for the opportune moment to arise...

Unfortunately, he was spotted by a meddlesome human just as the meatball - skewer and all - disappeared into his mouth.

This caused a flurry of panic amoung the humans, as they seemed to think he might be silly enough to choke on the toothpick. However, Napolean was way smarter than that.

He spat the single toothpick daintily onto the carpet, then tried to look really happy and loveable so as not to be told off for disobeying his human's rules. 

As usual, his good looks won out and after a quick scolding, his human quickly forgave him. However, the night didn't end there. Napolean was then forced to accompany his human down to the river, which was okay, until  explosions suddenly sounded all around him!! Napolean was seized by an utter panic! He ripped his lead out of my hands and began racing in mad circles up and down the river bank. To Ndog, it seemed as though the world was ending, in great explosions of sound and light. How could the humans stay so calm at a time like this?? 

It took half an hour after the fireworks had ended for us to calm Napolean down. But it took another day of rest for him to recover from the emotional trauma of Years Eve, and for me to recover from the draining effect of social interaction. Next New Years, we have decided we are staying in bed and eating meatballs (or maybe tofu in my case). Without the toothpicks.

*THE END (of 2014!)*

~Tam~