A Wanton Disregard For Hygiene

I confess. I've been holding out on you.

There has been a slight update on the dog-nose-chewing incident. I can't imagine why I didn't want to revisit that moment in time. My mom sure likes to reminisce about it. She starts laughing like Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner, Vicki Lawrence, and Tim Conway in the middle of an Old Man sketch. Like Ricky Ricardo when Lucy is foiled in one of her outrageous attempts to outsmart him. Like Roseanne in the opening credits of her first season.

Two weeks ago, when The Pony and I were carrying in groceries, Juno came to greet me. Ever since my taste of canine snout, I've been cautious. I still engage in our lovefests, but I'm wary. On high alert to avert my head should my sweet, sweet Juno fling her muzzle towards my pie-hole. She mostly behaves. But every now and then, Juno rears her silky head. You know how it goes. B.F. Skinner found out that a behavior will continue, even if only rewarded one out of ten times. No extinction for my Juno's nose-jabbing. She got a taste of me getting a taste of her snoot, and now she wants more.

It did not help matters that she ran to the grocery bags I plopped on the porch and took a quick sniff. Thus causing The Pony to crow that, indeed, "Juno DOES get into the groceries. Just like Dad said." Poppycock! She is just inquisitive, that's all. Maybe a missing person touched one of those grocery items while loading a freight truck, and Juno is on her way to becoming a famous rescue mutt. At no time did she insert that tasty nose of hers into the bags.

So there we were, after the novelty of the missing person wore off, Juno and me, lovin' it up. Then all at once, my sweet, sweet Juno forsook me for another. She took two steps across the side porch toward the garage door. To the cat we don't like very much, Dusty, with the crinkled ear, who was arching her back, rubbing against the cedar siding of the garage wall, indicating that she would very much like me to open that door back up so she could run in and consume some stale food that Juno had not gotten to yet. Allegedly.

Juno's mission was not to poke Dusty with her sharp, herding (yet delicious) nose, thus eliciting a playfight. Nor was it to run Dusty off so the spotlight would be on herself. Nope. Juno just had to step over and insert her pre-chewed nose directly into the inviting feline anus of that darn cat. Not simply a polite little sniff. Inserted. Like a proctologist without a glove. She was two nostrils deep in that puckered orifice. I blame Dusty. She didn't have to raise her tail like an exclamation point, now did she? Like the two of them don't have all the live-long day to play Who Sniffed Your Anus?

Just as quickly as she was gone, Juno returned to my loving arms. Raised her quivering snout toward my face. My mouth clamped shut tighter than Jerry Seinfeld's when his date Audrey offered him a piece of Poppie's pizza.

The horror just got real.