I'm not sure if you know this, but I have a very important full-time job. No, it's not writing this blog. That is a very part-time job. And no, I haven't been accepted to therapy dog school yet, but that's still the dream. No, my real job is a classic canine occupation - the quintessential American watch dog. Alert, focused, ferocious, and oh so protective of my family and our little slice of suburbia. One look at me and you'll know not to cross our threshold.
Oh, alright Mom! Real funny. One of Mom's jobs is to manage blog graphics, and she's not going to keep it very long if she keeps up that kind of thing. I am indeed a tough nut when I need to be!
When might that be, you ask? Anytime intruders come inside our fence or to our door. You name it - birds, foxes, other dogs in the front yard, delivery drivers or neighborhood kids at the door. Why just the other day, I found a snake - outside the fence!
Most of all, though, I am chasing squirrels. If Mom was any good at her graphics job, she'd have a riveting video to drop here of me tearing up the hill toward the fence, like I was shot out of a cannon. I zoom up there so fast she and Dad can't even manage to get it recorded. Until one day - pop!
Something in my leg just didn't feel quite right, and it hurt to walk on it, so I hobbled back to the house.
"I told you he was going to blow his leg out running up there like that," Dad said with disgust as he let me in the back door.
Mom ran over to check me out, but I didn't really want her touching me, and she seemed to know that, so she let me go climb into my Big Joe beanbag. Dad seemed real concerned, continuing to talk about how he knew this would happen, and I could tell Mom felt sad about it - it doesn't take much to make her feel guilty. But as I lay there in pain, I got to thinking. They knew it was dangerous for me to do it? They knew there was risk involved? Hmmm. I dozed off mulling that one over.
When I woke up, I climbed out of the Big Joe and stretched. My leg still hurt, and I was a tad gimpy, but I could walk on it. I sidled over to where Mom was sitting in her recliner and hopped up.
"You must be feeling better," she said. "If you can jump up here, you must not have blown out your hip or leg. Maybe you stepped in a mole hole. There are some ankle breakers out there."
I sat looking at her as she scratched my chest. My sweet, gentle human mother has let me run around in a yard with some kind of breaker thing, which sounds dangerous. I mean, chasing intruders in the yard is my job, but what if your job is dangerous? What if your humans know that?
I hopped down and slid my tablet out. ANKL BRAKRS I typed into Google. It said, "Did you mean: ankle breakers." I guess. So I clicked that. There were lots of basketball videos of people dribbling past other people who fell down. That can't be right. I clicked a definition link - ankle breakers are small but deep holes that cause a running person to fall and twist or break their ankle. That must be it. In our yard! Where I work every day! I went back to Google and typed HURT AT WORK.
This was a wealth of information! I learned there's such a thing as worker's compensation, which meant I was entitled to some benefits from my employer for my injury. But what benefits? How much was I owed? It was all very confusing, so I clicked a link for a Pain and Suffering Calculator.
"What are you typing?" Mom suddenly appeared behind me. Big Brother and I hate when she does that. "I thought I was your typist," she said dejectedly as I slammed the tablet shut.
"It's a surprise."
"Oh, ok. Well, let me know if you need help."
She walked away. I knew I had to do this on my own. I began completing the fields in the calculator. Injury: ankle breaker. How many days of work will you miss: 5 sounds good. I probably won't be able to properly chase anything for at least that long. Are you experiencing any of the following types of emotional distress: Pain - for sure. Disfigurement - a quick look at my leg, which wasn't resting exactly right confirmed this was a yes. Anxiety - I am definitely worried about holes now, so another definite yes. Wages - hmm. Dad says the box of food and treats we just got cost over $100, so I must be worth at least that much - yeah, $100 a week. I clicked calculate.
Amazing. The magic calculator explained that, where I live, I'm entitled to about 66 2/3% of my annual salary of $5,200, which is about $3,500! At the bottom of the calculator there was a field for Other (anything we missed?): I typed . . . x 7. It worked! In dog money, that would be $24,500!!! Oh what I could do with money like that!! I went into the office and turned our printer on so I could print my compensation statement for my employers, just like the calculator site said to do.
"Are you printing something?" Mom asked Dad, heading for the office. Aaahhh! I had to get there first! I tried to cut past her, but her big feet cut me off instead. "What the heck is this?" she asked, while Dad replied that he didn't print anything. I watched Mom's face. It went from confused (crinkled eyebrows) to surprised (raised eyebrows) to skeptical (one up, one down). "You can't be serious," she said to me.
"Totally serious."
"Hey, Hon," she hollered in to Dad. She walked back to the living room and handed him the statement. After one glance, he glared at me over the top of it. After two glances, he asked, "What's 'x7'?"
"Well, I'm a dog," I replied, trying hard not to sound too condescending. Dad rolled his eyes, gobbled up the statement, and tossed it gently at me. I used my paws to spread it out again and looked at Mom for help.
"Don't you think I do a good job keeping us all safe? Don't you think I'm worth that compensation?"
I could tell Mom was trying not to laugh. I hate it when she doesn't take me seriously. "Gus," she started, "don't you think we appreciate you?"
"Well, I don't know. Do you?"
She glanced at Dad. "We all do. Don't we, Dad?"
"Yes, and I show it by feeding you and letting you sleep in the house."
"But this is worker's compensation not worker's appreciation. I need pay for my injury," I countered.
"Fine," Dad said. "You can keep sleeping in the house, even though you can't chase squirrels for a while. There's your payment."
"Well, what if I gave you a discount? Make it human dollars?" I asked hopefully.
"Human dollars?" I had really stumped Dad.
"Divide it by 7."
Dad rolled his eyes way back up in his head this time and did some quick math. "You've already been compensated that - and then some - in dog camp, spa treatments, vet visits, and food," he said, as if I actually enjoy bath and nail trim days or trips to the vet. I could see I wasn't going to win. "And speaking of the vet, we're going to need to find out what's wrong with you, so there's your $3,500."
I sighed. There wasn't going to be any worker's comp, and to add insult to literal injury, I was in for another trip to the vet!
Fast forward a few weeks, because I have a feeling you're dying to know what happened to my leg. Long story short, even after a really long trip to the vet for a sedated x-ray, the results are sketchy - I might have a partially torn ligament. Kind of a non-starter for all of us, since we were all looking for something definitive. But the trip to the vet was not all for nothing - I got some good meds that make my leg feel better, and the pictures they took gave me some good ideas for a Helloween costume.
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