Our chickens look an awful lot like dogs

Big dogs should strike fear in people. They should make grown men take a step back while grabbing their crotch, make women shriek in fear and make little kids cry in terror. That's what big dogs should do.

Our "dogs" (Money Pit 1 and Money Pit 2 for short) don't do any of that. In fact, I'm sure Wife and I bought chickens from that dirt farmer in Northern Peoria. She guaranteed they were Lab/German Shepard pups, but we were duped. We purchased Colonel Sanders' top seller - farm-fresh chickens. If I was a thief breaking into the Melissa Compound, I would be more scared of our declawed cat Coco - the cat whose meow comes out like an angry old lady yelling at kids to stay off her lawn - than our two "dogs." Oh, they bark (just ask the neighbors) and have no problem patrolling the Back 40 to make sure the birds aren't flying off with the garden tools, but you stick a 4-year-old munchkin in front of them and they're shivering messes cowering behind Wife (they think I can take care of myself against the 4-year-old hooligan). That munchkin may as well be a dog-eating creature from the planet Catopia. The "dogs" tuck their tails, droop their ears, and look at Wife and I with big, fear-stricken eyes that say "please don't let this mini-human defile me."

Then there's the groomer, or as I like to call her the Dog De-stinker. It's one of these mobile groomers, so you give her a call, let her know the dogs rolled in their own poop (if she's lucky they may have made it their afternoon snack) and irrigation water (which is a step above mosquito infested swamp in Florida) and she pulls up in your driveway. Here's a snapshot of a De-stinker visit (it's from today, and it hasn't changed in four years):

1. Doorbell rings, "dogs" get excited with the thought of a visitor stopping in to see them. Maybe they'll get a treat - I can see their pea-brains working.

2. Open door to greet De-stinker. "Dogs" take one sniff of her canine fear-scented smock and run for the farthest corner in the house, hoping to blend with the wall and rug. I'm not the brightest bulb in the lamp - I attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas, you do the math - so I'm sure the "dogs" are shocked that I can find where they're hiding every time. "Seriously, he can't even lick his own privates," I'm sure is their rationale in thinking I won't find them.

3. Thinking like a dog, I pull down the leash and tell them we're going for a walk (5 feet past the out the front door and into the grooming van, but I don't tell them that). While I think I'm smart by trying to trick them, they're just as smart and instead sink deeper in the corner, melting into the wall and tile, forming a puddle of dead weight that I must now manipulate into the van.

4. Reminding myself that the De-stinker is behind me, and I have no desire to be on the evening news for shoving bike training wheels up my "dogs'" whoo-whoos so I can wheel them into the Salon di Fifi (which is a van with no rear windows and wood-paneled flooring. I think it's more of a dog-abductor van and I'm pleasantly surprised each time when the toothless Dog De-stinker returns the pooches back into my care), I break down and do my once-every 8-week exercise - doggy lift - whereupon I haul a pair of dogs (80 pounds and 55 pounds respectively) from the back room, through the kitchen, family room, living room and finally out the front door and then across the bed of hot rocks that is the Arizona earth before depositing the man's best friend into said Salon. Repeat step 4 when 1st dog is returned - smiling and happy to be freed of the shitsicles hanging off its rear - and it's 2nd dog's turn.

I can only imagine what goes on inside Salon di Fifi, but for our mean, vicious watch dogs to be more petrified of a 5-foot, bobbed-hair grandmotherly woman than the vacuum (which can cause tail maiming when I'm drunk and trying to clean up the carpet after a 4-tequila shot mishap) tells me there must be some scary stuff in the dog-abductor van. Blowers, clippers, shampoos, perfumes, things that likely go up the ass; something must spook these two vigilant watch dogs.

Maybe a visit to the groomer for the pooches is like a visit to the dentist for me. I'm always afraid they'll yank on a bottom molar only to find it's attached to my ass. They'll pull and pull and pull, meanwhile I'm tasting my sphincter. And when I walk through the front door I'm just happy that I'm home again and I can have a treat for going.

I think the pooches have reason to be scared, then.