Good Dog Henry’s tangle with tyranny

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My service dog, Good Dog Henry, almost got rounded up in a K9 ICE raid the other day. GDH is my intellectual support beast, and he was nearly sent to a canine detention camp in El Salvador or Equatorial Guinea. They eat dogs in those countries, if I’m to believe the president, and the holiday feasting season is approaching, so a bust would have had dire consequences for my potlicker.

A word about my pooch: Good Dog Henry is prominently mentioned in veterinary manuals as the only dog ever born without a brain. His noggin is solid bone. Consequently, he operates on muscular instinct alone, and his instincts are particularly aroused by Milk Bone Extra-Meaty flavored medium-sized dog cookies and peyote.

A word about my porch, where GDH and I often sun ourselves on nice days, is also in order. The “porch” is a concrete slab about 10 feet square next to the sidewalk on Central Avenue. It’s a nice spot to drink beer, watch traffic and bark our heads off.

What follows here is crackerjack crime reporting, so pay close attention.

It was a lovely Veterans Day, and Henry and I were sunning ourselves on the porch. I nursed a PBR tallboy and waved at passing cars, while GDH lounged beside me, licking where his testicles used to be, fantasizing about lame bunnies and conjugating Latin verbs. Cheyenne’s dogcatcher parked across the street and closely observed us.

Henry and I have followed this same routine for eight years, and we have never felt this oppressive police presence before. It occurred to me that one of Good Dog Henry’s political enemies must have placed an anonymous call to the deep state to have us checked out.

When the dogcatcher disembarked her vehicle, she strode downwind across Central to our porch. On her belt, she had the customary handcuffs, flashlight and stun gun alongside a pouch of dog biscuits to placate nervous curs.

Henry caught a whiff of treats on the westerly breeze, and followed his nose to the sidewalk to investigate. Whereupon the dogcatcher proceeded to warn us that dogs cannot be on the sidewalk, city property and all, without being leashed. Since I refuse to wear a leash, I don’t put them on my critters. So Henry greeted her buck naked.

No ticket was issued, and no dog was hauled off to the camps. We got off with a stern warning, but I got to thinking how my old Rawlins Outlaw football coach, John Maffoni, always told me, “Miller, every time you think, you weaken the team,” but sometimes I can’t help myself.

I had the tantalizing thought that, if Good Dog Henry had been busted and perp-walked into court for prancing on the city’s sidewalk unleashed, I would be his defense attorney. I would establish that Henry was enticed onto the sidewalk by the irresistible aroma of cookies on the dogcatcher’s person, and that this was a clear-cut case of police entrapment.

Henry would walk out of the courthouse a free dog.

My mind conjectured further that, if this same police harassment occurred this winter when the sidewalk was covered in snow, I would again represent Henry before the bar of justice, and he would beat the rap once again.

I ran my defense counsel’s strategy through my mind. I would get the dogcatcher on the witness stand and have her closely examine the 8-by-10 glossies of the crime scene. I’d ask her to tell the court where Good Dog Henry was standing. When she said “on the city’s sidewalk,” I’d have her look closer and admit that Henry was standing on a snow-covered sidewalk.

I’d then establish that, since snow is just frozen water, and the state of Wyoming owns all the water, Henry was actually standing on state property, not city property. And the state of Wyoming doesn’t give a rat’s ass if dogs stand on their snow. Case dismissed!

My revelry would be broken when a badge-carrying member of Sidewalk ICE handed me a ticket for not shoveling my sidewalk in another ploy by the Clinton/Trump, Soros-funded conspiracy against our individual rights.

I, for one, and Good Dog Henry for another, have had just about a bellyful of this tyranny!