The Dog Who Cried Wolf

My family has a dog named Fang.  This is her real name.  I feel quite safe releasing her name on the Internet, because Fang has never responded to it.  (So if you're going to kidnap her and hold her for ransom, I have two pieces of advice:  1) read the rest of this post before deciding if you really want to do that, and 2) calling "Here Fang!" will get you nowhere.)  

Our relationship with Fang makes the onlooker question who is master of whom.  We think she's pretty smart, but she does not sit on command.  She refuses to do tricks.  She sheds fur so profusely that armies of fluffballs roll around our house like tumbleweeds.  Whenever she hears the orrrrp of foil tearing on a yogurt container, she's there, immediately, glaring at us until we share.  And of course we can't turn her down.  Puppy-dog eyes are the most persuasive cliché there is.

Fang has many adorable qualities, but her annoying ones just might outnumber them.  She often barks to be let out with such agitation that we fear imminent dog explosion--but when she gets outside, it's all, "Oh, what a nice day, let me sniff this leaf and perhaps gaze into the distance for half an hour."  Fang pulls this trick four or five times a day.  We have to leash her up and walk with her each time because if we let her off leash, she'll bolt for the woods in search of something stinky to roll in.

One day, my parents got tired of this charade and bought a dog run.  This is a wire stretching between two trees in the backyard, with a line that comes down and attaches to the dog's collar.  The line rolls back and forth on the wire as the dog frolics to and fro in the yard.  What a great idea! we all thought.  Instead of wasting hours wandering outside with the Dog Who Cried Wolf, we could simply attach her to the run and let her relieve herself on her own schedule.  Following are some drawings of our expectations:

Yes, these were our expectations.  But this is what happened when we set up the run, attached Fang, and stepped back, brimming with pride at our own ingenuity:

She didn't get it.  Even after my mother tenderly led the dog back and forth by hand, even after my gleeful father shot some film of the poor animal's confusion, Fang could not understand the basic purpose of the run:  that, once attached, SHE COULD STILL MOVE AROUND.  Was she afraid of the line hanging over her head?  Did she think we'd fixed her to the spot with dark magic?  Unless we find out, it's false-alarm walkies for the rest of eternity.