Joey’s Ball

They are adopting a dog so it can commit suicide. I am Ralph and I am a dog trainer. I am proud of my profession but I’ve never trained a dog to commit suicide. It seems unnatural. Defending its owner I could understand, but suicide? It goes against every natural instinct of a dog. I mean you may as well let the pound put the poor creature to sleep humanely. But, I am the dog trainer and I am getting paid handsomely to train these dogs who would be dead anyway if they hadn’t been adopted by the state of Florida, but it seems inhumane.

In the past, we’ve had army dogs, police dogs, service dogs, psychological dogs, but all of them understood they were protecting their masters and my fear is that these dogs won’t. Here’s what the dogs are trained for: crazy SOB goes into school or other building with an automatic gun, explosive, or something else that will kill a lot of people quickly and my job is to train these dogs to go toward the gunman or the bomber and attack them even though the dog’s master is no where in sight. Even though the dog doesn’t know any of these people or even love them, the dog has to protect them. It should commit suicide by walking into bullets or explosives so the dog can kill the terrorist/bomber.  

The way dogs work is through fight or flight. They’ll try to attack the thing they’re scared of, but if it doesn’t work or they get hurt, they’ll retreat, because that’s what’s in their DNA.  

My first dog I get to train’s name is Joey. Joey is a St. Bernard. I find it’s better to start any kind of dog training outside in their natural environment. So I drive to the house where Joey lives; there’s a basement, main floor, and second floor. The house is bright white. I go to the backyard where Joey is fenced in.  The master put him there so he can go potty outside. Joey comes to me, just released from the pound, wags his tail, and drops a small tennis ball at my feet. He smiles. Dogs do smile. Today would be the first day of his training. I honestly wish they had given me a more depressed or anxious dog since I’d feel better about sending them out for suicides. Not good, but better. So, we play fetch for a few minutes and he seems like he’s on top of the world: he’s out of the pound, he has good bagged dog food and clean water, and now someone’s playing with him with his favorite toy.

I think. I then get the dummy from my car and bring it to the middle of Joey’s backyard. The dummy has a gun with blank bullets in it while I hold a button to make the gun fire. So, Joey comes to me and drops the tennis ball at my feet. I think for a moment. I then put the tennis ball in the dummy’s hand which isn’t holding the gun. Joey goes to the dummy, looks at the dummy, and looks at me. I then stand in the path of the dummy and say, “Joey! Help! He has a gun.” Joey keeps standing in front of the dummy waiting for his tennis ball to be thrown. I then push the button, blank bullets go towards me, and I fall back and moan.

“Joey! He’s a terrorist,” I say, “Attack him, Joey! Attack!” Joey looks at the dummy, looks at me, and looks confused. Then, he grabs the tennis ball from the dummy’s hand, and wags his tail. I scream in agony and say, “Help, Joey! He has a gun. Attack, Joey! Save us!”

But Joey wags his tail. I’m lying on the ground as though I’ve been injured and Joey drops the tennis ball in front of my face and wags his tail. He’s smiling again.

“No, Joey! Attack the bad man!” But Joey circles around me happily, picks up the tennis ball with his mouth and drops it in front of my face again. I know I will need to throw away this tennis ball. This would be the beginning of a long training.