Wonderbutt Flips Us Off

Wonderbutt and his Origami Tongue

Wonderbutt has been fairly well-behaved, lately, which can be disappointing when 1/3 of your blog material is dependent upon his exploits.  He still has his moments, though.

The Firepants Family was gathered around the table for a dinner cooked by your very own Mrs. Cap’n Firepants.  Even more surprising, we were trying to plan out our family meals for the week.  If you know anything about us, you know that we are a “Fly by the seat of your Firepants” kind of family when it comes to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Basically, the person who is the hungriest is the one responsible for preparing the meal.  With school about to start, though, I suggested we try to be a bit more organized.  I know full well that this way of life will completely dissolve about three weeks into the school year.  But I like to delude myself.

Deeply engrossed in a conversation about the health benefits of nachos, according to Miss Dimple Firepants (age 9), we barely noticed Wonderbutt sneaking under the table and grabbing one of the Cap’n’s prized Texas A&M flip-flops in his mouth.

“Hey, he’s got one of your shoes,” I interrupted.  Wonderbutt stood there, proudly holding the shoe in his mouth.  As soon as he saw that all of us had taken notice, he dashed out the doggy-door, narrowly avoiding the swipe of Cap’n Firepants’ hand in the attempted retrieval of the shoe.

The doggy-door leads to Wonderbutt’s Poop Pen, a small area enclosed by chicken wire where Wonderbutt, uh, does his business.  Wonderbutt sometimes brings things out there in his own version of a Keep-Away game in which none of us willingly participate.  It’s difficult to fetch objects from the Poop Pen.  And, many times, it is not very desirable.

Thankfully, Wonderbutt dropped the shoe in a bare patch of dirt, and then looked stubbornly at us through the window as all three of us coaxed him to return the shoe.

He raced back inside.  Without the shoe.

We tapped on the window.  This was our signal for him to go out into the Poop Pen way back when we were trying to teach him to use the dog door.  Of course, back then, we were trying to get him to go out there and pee.  Not something I remembered until Wonderbutt headed back out the door and, with a little shove from Dimples, landed back out in the Poop Pen.  He headed over to the shoe, and looked over his shoulder.  And, I thought, “Uh oh.  He’s going to pee on Cap’n Firepants’ college logo.  And Cap’n Firepants is going to be madder than he was when Wonderbutt ate our couch.  Maybe even more mad than when Wonderbutt ate our floor.

While Wonderbutt pondered his next move, and Dimples and I looked helplessly through the window, Cap’n Firepants had other ideas.  He went out the back door, headed over to the Poop Pen, reached over, and before Wonderbutt could make a decision, grabbed his flip-flop out of harm’s way.

It was a somewhat disappointing end to the whole situation.  For all of us except the Cap’n, I suspect.

Although Wonderbutt might have felt some sense of satisfaction later on in the evening when, as a direct result of me getting my car washed that day, a torrential downpour thoroughly soaked the A&M flip-flops, which the Cap’n had left outside the back door in order to keep them away from Wonderbutt.

Wonderbutt always wins.

Sorry about picture quality. Combination of old phone, fogged up window, and photographer chewing her dinner. Note the flip-flop in the bottom center.

Wonderbutt stands over the flip-flop with unpredictable intentions.

Cap’n Firepants waves his right hand to distract Wonderbutt while he steals the flip-flop back. Wonderbutt is not distracted.

 

 

What the Flip?

So, in my spare time, I like to cruise the CNN site for blog ideas.  Yesterday, I noticed an article on dog flipping.

Yes, you heard me right.

My first thought is a bit embarrassing.  When I was a kid, I so desperately wanted to be a teacher, I had a school for my stuffed animals.  Their report card included P.E.  To determine their grades, I would take each stuffed animal and flip it in the air. If I caught it, the “student” aced P.E.  If I dropped it, the poor animal failed.  I was ruthless (much the same as my own P.E. teacher at the time; you can probably do a complete psychological study on me using this one childhood story.)  One of these stuffed dogs was the bulldog from whom Wonderbutt got his real name (which is not “Wonderbutt”, as endearing as that is).  Wonderbutt’s namesake always got straight A’s.  Unlike Wonderbutt.

Of course, when I clicked on the link, it was immediately apparent that my dog flipping concept vastly differed from the type of dog flipping worthy of a headline on CNN.

Apparently, there are some not so heroic people out there, who will “adopt dogs”, and then sell them for more, making a profit off the dog.  This isn’t illegal, exactly, but can be devastating to the first owners who might have had legitimate reasons for giving their dog away and really hunted for someone who they thought would provide a good forever home for their dog.

I was really bummed when I read this.  Sad for the dogs.  And ashamed of myself for thinking CNN might actually post a story about stuffed animals that do gymnastics.

The obvious comparison to the CNN story is to house “flippers”, which made me wonder if this might be a possible idea for some Cesar Milan-ish person wanting to salvage “bad” dogs.  What if there were some heroes out there that would take in dogs that seemed hopeless, rehabilitate them, and then adopt them out to new, DESERVING, families?  Do I sniff a new reality show idea?

And, no, I am not considering giving them Wonderbutt.

Or you could just have a flip-flopping dog. Wonder if he's a Democrat or a Republican? photo credit: TimmyGUNZ via photopin cc