Dead bird morning

I yelled at my dog today. And it was so loud that it startled me and the dog and all of my neighbors. I yelled at him because I found him behind some trees trying to eat a dead bird. And it scared me and grossed me out and my gag reflex took full effect and then I yelled because I didn’t know what else to do. He stopped licking the bird then.

He looked at me, with his huge, pug eyes and started to cower. To him, the bird was no different than any other toy or stick or leaf he might find in the yard. But to me, it was a dead animal that could have been filled with disease or worms or whatever else could cause a bird to keel over and die right in the middle of the yard.

I kept yelling, telling him to get inside and that he was a very bad, bad dog. He ran to the backdoor and straight into the house. He knew he was in trouble because he didn’t wait for me to bribe him with a treat before he came inside. The rest of the morning, he just sat and looked at me and chewed on his red Kong that is supposed to be great for helping dogs with anxiety. And for the rest of the morning, I felt like a monster.

On the way to work, it’s all I could think about - how he had emerged from the trees when he heard me come into the yard. The way he ran up to me, wagging his tail and then took me back behind the trees to the bird, his bird. How, maybe, he was showing it off, he was proud. He had found a new toy and he was not eating the grass, which is something that always causes him to get in trouble anyway. He probably thought he was being a good boy, a good dog and now, I’ve probably scarred him for life.