First published as a gracious guest blog on Naked Girl in a Dress

Newspapers are bursting with stories about children being bullied; but rarely is the phenomenon of Dog Bullying broached in polite company. It’s possible this is because when I hang outside polite parties with my ear pressed against polite windows I’m mishearing polite things, but I think polite people (my friends) just don’t discuss it.

My dog is a frequent victim of bullying. While my husband and I take pains before walks to be sure his kerchief is tied at a perfectly jaunty angle, other dogs repeatedly approach him in an aggressive manner.   My mother-in-law’s mutt so intimidated our beautiful boy that he became one with the furniture, slinking around the room in the shadow of Lazy-Boys, terrified that mangy shelter-trash might notice him. We practically had to BEG him to come out from under the bed for his evening massage.

We whisked our baby away from that hostile atmosphere, only to have him double-teamed by a brother-sister terror squad during an otherwise peaceful beach walk. Jealous of his charm and poise, they menacingly circled our boy, forcing me to go Crouching Mommy Hidden Dragon on their furry asses until their cigar chomping owner finally put them back on their Hell Hound restraints.

Following the attack, my sweet puppy, Lord Underfoot, stared at me from behind one perfect curl flopping attractively over his left eye.

“Why?” said that beautiful, terrified gaze. “Why, Mommy, do they taunt me so?”

I’ve given that question a lot of thought and tried to learn from our mistakes. Attire is one area where I feel we’ve erred.  We know now never let our dog wear a retractable key chain on his collar. It makes it much too tempting for other dogs to pull on the keys and snap them back into a dog’s face. Just hide the house key for him in one of those plastic rocks.