Two reactive dog girls, but you have to socialize them.
It starts in the morning. They each know something is different, but neither of them can quite put their paw on what's wrong. They notice your reluctance. The way you show too many teeth when you smile. The nervousness as they eat breakfast. They hesitate, but finish their meal and something inside you begins to relax.
It’s not your fault. You found them as strays. Half feral and codependent. Anxious and likely to bite when frightened.
An hour later the drugs you slipped into their food starts to kick in. Pupils blow out, breathing slows. Neither of them respond when you slip the muzzles over their heads. One, in fact, you struggle to put on because the girl keeps trying to lick your face as you adjust the straps along her head.
Eventually you have them dressed, harnessed, leashed, and out in the sunshine.
Neither of them can read the “Friendly, please pet” patches on the back of the harness. Neither of them know what the holiday is, or what celebration has caused so many people to spill out onto the streets on this warm day.
You watch as the docile hounds lean into the pets from strangers. Where once they would be cowering, shivering messes, nipping and scurrying into the quietest shadows, you have them calm. Part steady training, part downers in their system keeping them passive.
Questions are asked, assurances given that they’re friendly.
“Oh no, one of them really likes to eat pinecones so she has to wear a muzzle. The other feels left out because she thinks it’s like jewelry."
You drift from crowd to crowd. Occasionally you’ll pause, slipping off the muzzle in a secluded spot to give each of them a chance to drink, or to force another pill into the back of their throat with a firm “Swallow.”
You’ll use less drugs next time, but for now it’s more important that all this gets associated with positive interactions. That and something in you can’t help but enjoy the sight of them so stupid and blank. Throughout your walk the pair of them keep falling into each other. Tangling their leads and tripping into giggling, drooling messes. One will try and give the other kisses, whining and pouting when her lips find only the muzzle. The attention from strangers is eagerly accepted, the friendlier of the two even giving her belly for pets.
Well into the afternoon you find yourself at a small party with friends, late because the pair of dogs with you got so much attention. Around these people you remove the muzzle from the sweeter of the pair, the one less likely to bite and less likely to deliver anything more than a warning nip if she does. Her kennelmate stays muzzled, looking up at all the guests with empty wonderment and a docile expression. More familiar hands reach down to pet the pair, welcoming them into the party. They lean into the touches. Pressing themselves into hands they growled at months ago. More than once you catch them arching their bodies into hands that had stopped petting encouraging their renewed attention.
“Look, she’s gotten so sweet.” The one you’d trusted found herself on a couch, curled up in the lap of a person she’d only seen a few times in her life. With each gentle cooing word the hound relaxed, exposing her belly and inviting the touches that eventually came. You watch your training play out in real time as her mouth is opened by delicate fingers. “Easy girl. No bite.” Lips part, teeth flash, and no attack comes. Instead the hound holds still as fingers play with her tongue, exploring her teeth, dragging themselves along the sharp points with careless ease. Never once do you see your hound twitch. Never once do you see the warning ripple across her body as this stranger so carelessly plays past her lips.
Next to you the anxious one is watching intently. You can hear her soft pants, see the shift from paw to paw. Next time you think you’ll have her in the same position.
Before the party is over you slip them each another pill. They take it without complaint or comment, no thoughts in their heads except those which you’ve allowed. The anxious one has her muzzle put back on, straps carefully checked to make sure there’s no gaps.
When the night’s concluded you’ll lead them back the quiet way home. Letting the night air cool their overly warm bodies. You tell them how well behaved they were, how proud you were of their behavior. The more anxious of the pair look up at you with pupils as dark and wide as the night sky, a stupid little smile on her lips, teeth flashing behind the bars of her muzzle.
“So when’s the next party?”
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