Bad puppy

Sometimes play just… well, it just doesn’t work.

I tried puppy play, I thought he would be sweet as a puppy… fun and playful, insistent and helpless.

He was not to rise from all fours, he was not to speak. He could make sounds, he could try to indicate to me if he wanted things. He was to act like a puppy.

He looked cute and a little confused as he sank to the floor.

I put a collar and lead on him, led him into the bathroom.

I had him on all fours in the tub, leash tied to the taps, scrubbing him all over, teasing him (yummy!), roughly washing his hair and face. He shook his head like a puppy, water flinging off his face, it made me laugh. Drying him, utilitarian, forcefully rubbing at his skin, talking to him about being a good boy for the washing.

Naked, collared and cuffed, I wrapped his hands in ripped cloth and duct tape, paws.

I fed him breakfast: bananas, cereal, yoghurt. His face sweetly to the bowl on the floor, arse in the air. I scraped the plate with my fingers and let him lick and suck them clean. I put a bowl of water on the floor. I talked to him, idly, like you talk to your dog.

Then… nothing…

He had asked before we started if he could read. I had said yes (a mistake, puppies can’t read!), so there was a book open on the floor that he laid down with, occasionally struggling to turn pages with his paws.

I did my own thing. Going to pet him now and then, checking on him.

It just… didn’t work.

He didn’t *do* anything and I didn’t specifically tell him to *do* anything. I had thought he would get into a puppy mindset and be cute and demand attention and snacks and beg and rub up against me and want to be petted and played with. He has a great imagination, it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t happen that way. He had thought that I would actively ask things of him as a puppy, take the lead in telling him what I wanted from him.

Both of our assumptions were fair enough, and it was my fault that we hadn’t discussed it more specifically beforehand.

I somehow thought that it would just… work. But it didn’t.

So then we stopped.