Dog Training

[feminine_menace]

Over by the fireplace, YT is running Stella the poodle through her repertoire of tricks - sitting, rolling over, shaking paws. At one point she steps back, takes a deep breath and bellows "STELLAAAAAA!" like Marlon Brando in Streetcar.

Stella responds with "Ar-ar-ar-aroo-roo-roo-roo!"

"Good girl," YT says, tossing Stella a treat. Stella snaps it up happily, and YT ruffles her ears.

Comments

[tattling]

Franklin starts to approach with his milkshake, but doesn't want to interrupt. So he watches on the outskirts for a little while.

[feminine_menace]

Stella has other ideas. She loves new people! She trots over to Franklin and eagerly jumps up, placing her front paws on him. Fortunately she's not large enough (yet) to knock him over.

"Stella! No jumping," YT says sternly. Stella puts her feet back on the floor, and looks up at Franklin with cheerful eyes and a wagging tail.

"You can pet her if you want," YT says. "She don't bite." YT is considerably less enthusiastic about Franklin than Stella is: children between the ages of "kindergarten" and "teenager" are problematic.

[tattling]

The milkshake is jostled slightly and spills onto Franklin's sleeve, but he doesn't care (and is wearing his unstable molecules jumpsuit anyway, so no stains). Grinning, he puts it down on the nearest table before petting Stella.

"Hi, Stella! Who's the cutest dog in the bar? I'm pretty sure it's you!"

He rubs at her head, then belatedly glances over at the young woman. "Hey, I'm Franklin. Sorry for interrupting your training. I used to have a pet dog, I kinda miss him."

[feminine_menace]

"'Sokay," YT says, because she can understand. "Name's YT. What kind of dog did you used to have?"

YT does not really know how to talk to children. But she knows how to talk about dogs. So maybe they have the beginnings of a workable conversation here.

[tattling]

"Hi, YT," Franklin responds, still petting Stella, then frowns thoughtfully. "Honestly, I dunno. He was big ... I think he was from another planet or something. He had to leave a couple years ago."

[feminine_menace]

"Whoa. So he was an alien dog?" Or maybe a dog-shaped alien.

Stella is very happy with the petting! She licks Franklin's fingers enthusiastically.

[tattling]

Franklin nods, then giggles as Stella licks him.

"I think so. Unless... well, maybe he was like Lockjaw. He's the Inhuman dog. D'you know Inhumans?"

[feminine_menace]

YT shakes her head. "Nah. But there's a lot of shi..." Whoops. YT makes a throat-clearing noise. "...stuff around here that I don't know."

[cottoncandypink]

There's another dog running around the bar in a panic. Or at least he was, until he spots the Other Dog and immediately forgets what he was panicking about. The dog that comes over to investigate is holding a baseball bat in his mouth, like he expects someone to throw it.

[feminine_menace]

Other dog! Potential new friend! Stella trots over to the other dog. Hey New Friend! Hi! You smell interesting! I'm going to sniff your butt now!

YT arrives on the scene shortly afterward. "The fuck's with the baseball bat?" she asks the new dog.

(He might understand. There are some pretty smart dogs around here.)

[cottoncandypink]

If Buster does understand, he lacks the capacity to actually respond. He would also have to be paying attention, but right now, he is not. He's too busy trying to decide between holding onto his bat, and dropping it to stiff the other dog's butt as well. Turns out, doing both is tricky.

After a few minutes of struggling, he drops it to the floor in favour of getting to know Other Dog.

[feminine_menace]

Stella barks happily and play-bows to Buster. YT, meanwhile, is giving a skeptical eye to the baseball bat. That and a skeptical poke with her toe.

[cottoncandypink]

Play? Play! Buster returns Stella's bark and jumps up and down like some giant, maniac jackrabbit.

It's a perfectly ordinary baseball bat, which has been stolen by a dog and turned into a perfectly ordinary toy. As such, it looks like the dog has been slowly trying to eat it, though without making much headway.

[feminine_menace]

YT wonders exactly what is with this dog. Is he retarded? Can dogs be retarded?

Stella is not troubled by such considerations. Her pressing concern is whether to play 'tag' or 'wrestle' with the other dog. She can't decide so she tries to do both at the same time.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster's kinda special. In a Good Dog sort of way.

He likes this game with Stella! It ends up with Buster on his back for a few seconds, before he recovers to tackle Stella right back. If there's anything nearby that can be knocked over, there's a good chance his tail will find it, the way it's swinging around.

[feminine_menace]

The tail doesn't knock anything over, but Stella, in her scrambling enthusiasm, manages to knock a chair over.

"Okay. Outside time," YT decides. She snaps her fingers to get the other dog's attention, picks up the chewed-up bat (which is kinda slobbery - ew), and wiggles it as she moves towards the back door. Hopefully this will get Bizarro Dog to follow her, and Stella will follow Bizarro Dog, and they will all get outside before too much property damage can occur.

[cottoncandypink]

Hey, that's Buster's bat! You bet he's going to follow YT to get it back. He barks like a deranged seal as he follows after YT, bouncing all the way. He's forgotten all about Stella for the moment, because someone is stealing his bat!

[feminine_menace]

Stella follows YT and Bizarro Dog, just as YT hoped she would. When YT gets to the back door, she opens it with one hand and flings the bat out back with the other.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster takes off after the bat, still barking like a lunatic. He doesn't bring the bat back right away, though. He does a few quick laps around nothing first. To show off how he caught the bat.

[feminine_menace]

"Weirdo," YT mutters, shivering a bit in the chill. Stella runs after Buster, barking happily. They are playing tag now!

[cottoncandypink]

It's hard to play tag and show off his baseball bat at the same time, so Buster drops teh bat to chase Stella around in the grass. He's a long, tall dog, bred for running, so it's an awkward game of tag as he winds up more or less running back and forth in her general direction.

There are no Other Dogs at home. Only the werewolves, but he's chased all of those out of the neighbourhood.

[feminine_menace]

YT ducks inside to get some cold-weather outerwear. Meanwhile Stella decides to switch from tag to wrestling.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster doesn't notice when YT leaves. He's far too busy playing with his new friend. He in turns tackles Stella, and then rushes over to grab his baseball bat again and show it to her. It's clearing a very important baseball bat.

[feminine_menace]

Stella sniffs the bat. It is a very impressive...thing. But she's not sure what to do with it, since Buster has the only end you can actually get a mouth hold on.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster shows Stella all the neat things you can do with it. Like how if you toss your head just so, you can throw it all by yourself.

And if you don't get out of the way in time, you can wang yourself right in the face with it, because it's awkward and heavy and doesn't really go anywhere useful. Buster yelps and jumps away first, and then decides it was all the bat's fault and starts barking at it.

[feminine_menace]

Stella whimpers sympathetically and licks Buster's poor abused face. Which is what YT sees going on when she comes back out of the bar equipped with winter gear.

"Whoa, Stella. At least wait 'til he buys you dinner first."

[cottoncandypink]

Buster's human may not be the most responsible, or even involved, dog owner, but Buster has been snipped at least.

But that isn't going to stop him from slobbering all over Stella's face in return.

[feminine_menace]

"Okay, enough mushy stuff. Stella, let's take a walk." She turns to Buster and considers a moment before adding: "You can come if you want, Bizarro Dog."

Stella barks happily. Yay! Walk! And in an interesting new place, with her New Friend! She follows (and occasionally circles) YT as YT starts walking towards the edge of the gardens and the rolling hills.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster is excited too! His tail wags so hard, his entire backend is wiggling all over the place. He barks his weird seal bark and hops after both of them like he's on springs.

Yay new friends!

[feminine_menace]

"You're weird," YT declares to Buster, shoving her hands in her pockets as she walks out of the garden. She spends a while walking over the hills and clambering over the rocks - carefully, because there's still snow on the ground in some places.

After a while, she gets kind of hungry. She addresses the dogs. "Hey. Stella...chow time?"

Chow time! How exciting! Stella barks and wags her tail happily.

YT starts heading back to the bar. "You too, Bizzaro Dog," YT says over her shoulder. Since it doesn't seem like anyone else is around to feed him.

[cottoncandypink]

Snow isn't a thing that exists where Buster's from, so it's still a novelty to see it here. He spends as much time play-tackling Stella as he does burying his face in the snow and rolling around in it.

Buster doesn't know what "chow time" means, but he does know that tone of voice, and bounds over without hesitation. Nor does he know that he isn't supposed to be taking food from anyone else. One of the tags on his collar even says as much, with the words "DO NOT FEED" hand-written in Sharpie. Not that he can read that, either.

[feminine_menace]

YT hasn't gotten close enough to Buster to read his tags, so she's not aware of this instruction. And she probabaly wouldn't heed it if she were, because Buster seems kind of underfed. Not feeding your dog is a dick move. Telling other people not to feed your dog is an exponentially dick move.

The three of them go back inside. YT pulls of her gloves and scarf and shit as she heads to the Bar (with Stella happily wagging beside her). She gives her winter stuff to the Bar and gets a couple bowls of dog food, which she sets down on a clear area of the floor. "Chow time!"

[cottoncandypink]

Buster pauses in following YT inside just long enough to fetch up his baseball bat again, knocking it against anything and everything that doesn't jump out of his way as he trots through the bar.

When he's given the bowl of dog food, he doesn't really seem to know what to do with it. It doesn't look like food, and it smells funny. But once he figures out that it is food, he practically inhales it like he hasn't eaten all week.

[feminine_menace]

"That is some epic scarfing even for a dog," YT observes. That gets her wondering: who does Bizzaro Dog belong to? Obviously they're not taking good care of him. When the dog's done eating, YT gets up close (slowly) and takes a look at his tags. She learns that Bizarro Dog's actual name is Buster. And that his owner doesn't want other people to feed him. "Shit. If you don't want other people to feed your dog, you oughtta feed him yourself, asshole," YT mutters.

She hasn't met Buster's owner but has already come to the conclusion that he must be, well, an asshole.

Stella finishes her food, including some kibble that rolled onto the floor, and snuggles up to Buster, tail wagging.

[cottoncandypink]

Buster suspects there is more food to be had, and immediately turns those big, yellow puppy dog eyes on YT. Look at him, so sad and skinny. More? There must be more! :C

[feminine_menace]

YT is fluent in Sad Puppy Eyes. And Buster is underfed. "Fuck it. Okay." She gets more food from the Bar - this time it's high-quality canned food - and puts a bowl in front of Buster. She also gives more food to Stella, so she won't feel left out. Stella will burn it off running around and being her usual puppy self anyway.

[cottoncandypink]

This food disappears just as quickly as the kibble did.



And then comes right back up again almost as soon as he's done with it.


And because he's a dog, the first thing Buster does is start sniffing at his own vomit.

[feminine_menace]

"No!" YT yells. "Nonononono!" She grabs Buster's collar to haul him away from the stinking mess. And then Stella starts nosing in. "No, Stella," YT commands. Stella whimpers but backs off. "Geez. I shoulda known better."

[cottoncandypink]

And now Buster's really hungry, because everything that was in his stomach is now all over the floor. It's not his fault he doesn't know when to stop.

It's not fair. And he whines to make that point, as he tries to get to anything that might be even remotely edible.

[feminine_menace]

"Ugh. Fuck. I'll feed you more kibble, just stop trying to eat your own barf. Please." YT did not sign up for this shit.

[cottoncandypink]

Suddenly, something else catches Buster's attention, and just like that, he's not thinking about food. He yips loudly and suddenly takes off toward the door.