You! Go to Doggie Jail! Right now!

I admit-- I was a little skeptical when my parents invited us to bring our dogs for a "dog party" during the 4th of July.

They live in Placer County, which has lots of long, dry grass, and fireworks were illegal this year. Instead of the traditional fireworks, my parents invited people with dogs, so the dogs could play and get away from all the big-boom-shit that happens during the 4th.

This is actually a nice idea--for nicely behaved dogs.

Which only one of mine is.

Johnnie was great. He spent most of the time under my seat, occasionally licking my foot as if to say, "Mom, that 100 lb. Lab scares the crap out of me. Make him stop."

Geoffie?

Well, she saw her first dog besides my parents' dog, Max (who gets along with all things terrestrial, apparently) and went yapping after that big Akita's ass. And then Luna the Akita turned around and barked--and Geoffie ran screaming into our arms.

We decided she wasn't safe around civilized dogs, so we put her in a pen in the corner of the yard, surrounded by blanket, with her leash staked to the ground. (We had to do this carefully. She tried to hang herself a couple of times, and her pen was probably the most carefully watched blank spot in the universe. Oi.)  And she barked. The whole time.  Her barking followed the classic "extinction" model--the flurries got shorter less often, but she never really stopped.

*sigh*

It was such a lovely idea.

By the end of the evening, she was sitting on Mate's lap, exhausted, growling whenever one of the bigger dogs lumbered into the circle of lawn chairs as we talked.

And the big dogs?

Well, one of them tried to go visit, but we distracted him and he jumped into the swimming pool instead. (This was fairly impressive--he scaled the 5' side of the pool in one leap.)

And of course Max was busy roughhousing with the real dogs.

My mom and I were sort of sad. Geoffie is absolutely sure she's a big dog--she just hasn't figured out that big dogs don't yap, and that yappy dogs are annoying as crap.

So, next time there's a dog party, my dogs will stay home.

But other than that, it was a lovely 4th of July!