If You Hurt My Dog...

God help me if we ever have kids.

We took B.B. to her doggy day-care today, which we've been experimenting with lately as an outlet for some of her energy if it's raining and we can't get her to the park. They have two large rooms there with rubber(-ish) padded floors and plastic on the walls and a web cam in each room where the dogs can play so the owners can watch them while they are away. We took her there a couple times last week and watched her from home. She looked like she was having a great time just romping around with the other dogs.  We thought we'd found a nice place for B.B. to have some fun.  (That's what we literary types call "foreshadowing.")

It was supposed to rain all day today, so we took her in this morning for a half-day of play (that's all we ever do).  We dropped her off at seven o'early in the it's-still-dark-outside.  K came home, I went to work, and we watched her on the web cam.  I had a browser open and would check in every couple of minutes during and in-between meetings just to see how she was doing.  However, by about eight forty-five, we couldn't see her anymore.  

So K called them, concerned. They told her that B.B. had gotten some poop on her (yuck, I won't elaborate) and they'd taken her to get cleaned up. But the whole rest of the morning, we still didn't see her. K went to pick her up at noon, and asked about it. They (and let me pause here to say that the people who work there all seem very nice, so I'm not sure exactly what happened) said that after B.B. got cleaned up she spent the next 3 hours hiding under a table with her ears back, cowering.

Now, I know my dog. She's never done that at all, and she's been yelled at a time or two here at home.  In fits of frustration, I've even called her names even that make me really glad she doesn't understand English. And she'll drop her tail, run and hide for a second, but she'll always come out almost immediately and nuzzle up to us. At the dog park, even under the worst conditions when other much more aggressive dogs have been mean to her, she picks herself right back up and goes and licks their face to show them she's not a threat.

So what could have forced her under a table for several hours cowering? K said that the people (I want to call them kids because they all look like they're 15-20 years younger than I am, though it's probably more like 12-17 years younger) who brought B.B. out to her today were really nice, explained all of this, and seemed genuinely puzzled at her behavior. They offered some suggestions, things they'll do differently next time she's there, to try to prevent that - whatever it was - from happening again.

But I'm not sure if I ever want to take her there again. Someone - man or canine - did something to my B.B. Was it the blond-haired kid who was lackadaisical about cleaning up after the dogs? (Yeah, I was watching you on the web cam.) Was it the nice girl who took her from us this morning? Was it the other nice girl who brought her back to K at noon? Was it some unseen worker who may have been responsible for cleaning B.B. up?

I don't care who it was, but if you're reading this now, I've got a few words from you my friend. Lay a hand on my dog, and I'll lay a hand on you. You do what you did again, whatever it was, and you will feel my squirrelly wrath.  And if that's not completely, one hundred percent clear, let me rephrase in words I'm sure you will understand:  if you hurt my dog, I will fucking end you. Make no mistake.