henry

My dog Henry has an unhealthy relationship with balls.

I’ve always assumed that it was his lack of testicles driving this obsession. They were cut off early in his life, and then we gave him a bunch of balls to play with, which kinda sucks now that I think about it. I can only imagine the disappointment of seeing that small, lonely flap of skin where his balls used to be when he looks between his legs.

Whether he’s capable of thinking to that depth is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is his obsessive throw the ball/get the ball/drop it in your lap/repeat to infinity thing that he seems to have going on. If you don’t throw the damn ball, he will bark, whine, claw, yelp, sing, dance, faint, fall off the ottoman, and drop it on your head repeatedly until you throw it or go bat-shit-crazy out of your mind…or both. This habit is both perpetually cute and excessively annoying.

Another habit of Henry’s is the ability to do things that lack any rational explanation.

The trashcan in the bathroom is a great example.

Looming at about a foot tall, the bathroom trashcan was forged from pure stainless steel and plastic by the hands of Indonesian cheap labor. It has a foot pedal-operated lid and no wheels, weighs about three pounds,  and is pretty typical for an object that came from the retail version of Mount Doom.

On our first day of owning it, we came home to a crime scene. Despite the large base and an appropriate height-to-weight ratio, it was overturned and opened, its contents spread out on the floor like blood splatter from a bleeding, murdered mini landfill. I told Henry, “NO!”, to which he responded with a five-second stare and a slow turn, followed by a dramatic dropping of the ball, followed by a whine and a lot of barking.

We took the trashcan away for a few days and placed it on the back of the toilet, safely out of reach. It stayed there for a week or two, but seeing it perched up like a giant, wingless, cylindrical, steel bird eventually got old. My wife moved it back down to the floor where it once stood.

We came home again to find it not only overturned, but also rolled out about five feet down the hallway with a trail of tissues, used bandages, and half-chewed toilet paper rolls left in its wake. I can imagine how this happened: Henry knocked it over and pushed it around to try and get the contents out. Weird, but plausible.

I scolded him, he got a ball, and we were back at square one. Not knowing what to do, we removed the trash can and put it somewhere else for a few weeks.

As I’m sure you have picked up by now, I’m married; therefore, I have only half a vote on the interior decoration of the house while the wife holds 1.5 votes. Without going into all of the math involved, basically I was outvoted, and the trashcan was put back in its rightful place like a loyal puppy at the foot of the porcelain throne.

Upon our arrival home the next day, we found that the trashcan had been moved once again. This time it had traversed ten feet down the hallway over thick carpeting, standing upright with the contents of the trashcan safely stored inside.

Not one piece of trash was spilled anywhere.

I have no idea how our dog Houdinied the trashcan from one spot to another without spilling any of it. It was as if he sprouted opposable thumbs for the afternoon, turned into a biped, and used those new found powers on moving the trash can. The only thing I could do at this point was to let myself be impressed.

When I got home, I threw the ball for him.

For an hour.