Straight Zen

Saturday, we decided to go downtown for a family day out at Quincy Market. I said to May and Marii while making the turn out the driveway, "I'll let Creation know we're headed down there so whoever does these things will have our usual parking spot cleared out by the time we arrive." They didn't laugh too much, since a couple of times this has actually worked. Lucky somehow, I often manage to get the same space, on India St., behind the Custom's House Marriott and just a fat horse apple's heave from the market. Gorgeous day, and everyone and their mother-in-law are out enjoying it. Traffic is heavy through Alewife and most of the way down Storrow Drive. I usually go to the market area around the back way, through Post Office Sq. then east on Milk St. We were approaching the intersection of Milk and India when a guy started getting into a van at a metered space, right on the corner. He waved to let us know he was leaving.

Bill recreates the scene from "The Departed" where Jack Nicolson, standing near the end of Long Wharf, gets highly perturbed at Matt Damon for discussing 'business' over a cellphone.

Creation does it again! Sure... it wasn't my regular India St. space, but India was closed off to construction. The spot we ended up with was the closest legal parking space.

Life as A Master of the Universe has a lot going for it, so long as you don't get too carried away with it.

The Market is packed; as crowded as I've ever seen it, and I've seen it a lot. The Yankees are in town, it's school vacation and college visitation season is at its peak. While the girls shopped, I hung out with Lylaboo, people-watching (me) and getting viscously petted by sadistic toddlers (the dog) near the market directory on the Commercial St. side.

Now, it's hardly news that I've always been a devoted student of the fine female form. Today's woman's underwear technology will someday make the list of the Eight Wonders of the Atomic Age, however, contemporary fashion tends to make the heavyweight division look like what my dad used to call, 'ten-pounds of crapola crammed into a five-pound bag.'

My advice to the women headed out and about in public spaces... make that you guys, too... unless what you got is really good, it's better off left to the lack of imagination.

I got my sausage and pepper fix while we were there, too. I couldn't find a street vendor and ended up with a inferior product from the overpriced food court that was, nonetheless, wicked pissa.

Never mind murderous Al Queda operatives... I tortured my dog.

Was it torture? It didn't leave any marks or cause any kind of permanent physical damage. Psychological damage? I asked Lylaboo. She was more or less non-committal on the topic, though I'm pretty sure I scared the beejeesus out of her.

We've had Lyla now through two winters. We really are sort of in the woods (and so are our neighbors), so we let Lyla go out in the yard unattended early on. Through that first winter and the following summer, she stayed fairly close to the house and you could easily find her whenever you wanted to. However, she kept on expanding her range, practically day by day. She goes into hunting mode, puts her nose to the ground and follows it, not to mention chipmunk chasing and her favorite: bird-spooking

I suppose it was inevitable, but this year she began to wander down to the street, sometimes drawn there by folks walking by. At first she was afraid of the cars and stayed well away from them but something changed; perhaps Lyla realizing cars have people in them. She started chasing after cars, especially cars carrying our enigmatic, unaccessible neighbors.

I tried to train her, of course, crating her up for an hour or so every time I had to go out of bounds to fetch her, or someone rang our doorbell, our little doggy in tow.

LEFT: Laylaboo doesn't mind her spiffy new red collar and remains oblivious to its shock value.
RIGHT: We located the Pet-Safe 300 wireless fence transmitter at the rear of the family room,
covering most of our nuveau faux lawn. (Satellite photo courtesy myCIA.com)

After the fifth or sixth time some passerby brought her to our door, afraid she might get hurt, I decided we had to do something... the dreaded fenced-in yard, a dog pen or run, or one of those newfangled electronic fence things.

I didn't particularly like any of the options. Life was cool when Lyla could wander free. We were happy, she got her exercise and could respond to her bodily functions at her leisure and not our will... or lack of it.

One morning I watched her chase the next door neighbor's car down the driveway, almost getting run over in the process. I had to do something. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I chose the option that will force any recalcitrant animal to conform, something called a "wireless fence" by its maker, Pet-Safe--the world's leader manufacturer of household pet torture devices.

Since I saw Cesar Milan on his Dog Whisperer show use a shock device to coax a Dalmation away from chasing farm tractors, it must be okay.

The Pet-Safe 300 Wireless Fence is simple in concept. There's a transmitter for the house and a handsome red collar for the dog that fixes taser prods up against the unfortunate animal's neck. The transmitter has an on/off switch and just a single dial, used to set the range of the device, in our case, 80 ft to start. When the hapless canine approaches the limit of the transmitted signal there is a (very) small "buffer zone", where the collar emits an annoying buzz as a warning. If the victim proceeds past this virtual boundary, the device lets loose with the juice, keeping it on for as long as thirty seconds, until the jolted bow-wow somehow finds its way back to inbounds.

Pet-Safe's next model monitors your pet's heartbeat and calls the vet if, by some small chance, your animal ends up toasted.

Well, to make a long story longer, it all worked like a charm, did everything as advertised. We set up the flags provided to mark the perimeter at 80 ft., covering the majority of the area covered by our faux lawn. Training is simple. You let the dog randomly wander past the boundary and gets its dumb ass shocked until it finally figures it out that going past the flags must have something to do with it. We cut the Pet-Safe 14-day training cycle down to just three. After a single training session, Lyla wouldn't budge more than ten-feet from the porch door. By day three, she would gingerly approach within perhaps twenty-feet of the the flags, maintaining a very respectful distance.

I hated doing that, but now she's safe, despite the trauma.

Was it torture?

Yes. You'd better believe it...