Monday Morning Mojo: A tail is a terrible thing to waste

Pop quiz, everybody: when your dog looks like this all the time, how do you know what he’s thinking?

Mojo from ground level--he looks pretty sick!

Nope, I can’t tell, either.

This is where a dog tail would come in handy. A tail is an extremely useful part of the Canine Early Warning System: if it is wagging, the dog is happy. If it is hanging low, the dog is sick, or afraid.

We don’t know why the dog is sick or afraid, unless it has something to do with the pound of butter we left to soften on the kitchen counter—in which case the dog is probably also preoccupied with deciding whether to erupt like Vesuvius on the living room rug or all over the stairs.

Mojo's rear end: there is no tail, just a squiggleYes, tails are useful things. I’m sure Mojo wishes he had one, too, because it would come in handy for dog-human communication via wagging or drooping or holding between his legs, not to mention waving banners with messages scrawled on them like, “If you think I’m going back to Obedience, you can BITE ME.”

But there’s no tail, just a little squiggle, and even his squiggle looked awfully sad today. I was THIS CLOSE to transporting him to the Emergency Vet, where merely walking through the front door costs approximately the same amount as our monthly mortgage installment. And then…

MOJO: Ho hum, I’m dying, really, I am.

DIDI: Hi, everyone, I brought Clara over for her play date!

MOJO: Woo hoo! Let’s party, BAY-BEE.

Yup, I came that close to helping the Emergency Vet make the last payment on his Ferrari. And all because this dang dog doesn’t have a tail.

The little faker.

Mojo, stretching and looking sad. Or sick.

15 Replies to “Monday Morning Mojo: A tail is a terrible thing to waste”

  1. Mojo seriously needs to consider posing for a calender, like Dooce’s former congressman Chuck.

    I’d TOTALLY have that at my desk at work… 🙂

  2. but seriously? how can you be upset with a face like that?…the eyes! the droopy jowls! he’s too cute!

  3. Mojo fix!

    A calendar. 😀 It’d look great on my wall and wouldn’t conflict at all with the Cavalier calendars or the wolf calendar. He’d fit right in.

    Glad he perked up. Play dates are very important.

    Can I loan you Two-Toes? 😉

  4. Mojo for president!! He looks so very serious and studious. Nobody would mess with Mojo, either. can you see the North Koreans standing up to that face? No, sir. “Oh, we’re sorry Mr. Mojo sir. If you would kindly just raise your jowls a little we would be happy to hand over all the radioactive stuffs. We are sorry to have ruined your day with our misguided bomb-testing.”

  5. Such a woogums! My darling old hound is pushing 12 and has days when she looks like that top picture (even though she’s a black lab). Very sweet. Love the tail.

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