Scarring Puppies For Life Is A Skill Nobody Wants

My latest photographic endeavor was sheer genius. Envision this in your mind along with me, please.

Ingredients: 1 super cute puppy, a handful of helium balloons, and a camera.
Directions: Tie a dog toy to the end of the helium balloon bunch, and get the super cute puppy to fetch the toy. Take picture of puppy running with the balloons streaming behind him, making it look as though the toy is not there and the puppy is just playing with balloons.

IT'LL BE SO CUTE.

I didn't exactly have helium on hand, but no worries. I saw on Pinterest that one can make helium balloons at home with baking soda and vinegar. Bonus: a fun sciency thing for the kids to do! But that was a fail, because while the gas filled the balloon in an impressive way, the balloon was not lighter than air, Instead, it was instead heavier than a tennis ball, and I think I heard a "thunk" as it hit the floor. But it shouldn't be a huge problem to have a lack of helium. Just blowing up balloons might work, too. If Jack is running fast enough, they'll stream behind him and appear to float, just not very high. Still a super cute photo, no? So we blew up a handful of balloons in a variety of bold colors.

Jack was quite interested in his fun star-shaped chewy at the end of the balloons, and was more than glad to chase after it. Balloons didn't phase him that much, but they did hide the toy when it landed and he wasn't dedicated enough to root through the colorful mass to find what he wanted. I got this picture before I had another brilliant idea.

It's got all the ingredients, but the recipe just wasn't what I envisioned. I was almost resigned to the fact that it was as good as things were going to get, and then that other brilliant idea struck.

Jack wishes it would have struck me dead.

Let's just say that one should probably never tie balloons to the collar of a puppy and then set him loose in the yard.

This is so much closer to the picture in my head, except for the part where the puppy is terrified out of his wits and running like a monkey with it's tail on fire. But gosh, the balloons streamed nicely. See?

Even though only 2.5 seconds passed between those last 2 photos, a lot of ground was covered. And the balloons streamed beautifully. (Yes!) And then things went from bad to worse. As I was circling around the other side of that Way Too Huge garden to head off the poor puppy and rescue him from his plight, the balloons started to pop. It's bad enough to be chased by something that is bouncing off of you, but to have them explode loudly was just too much. It's shocking that Jack didn't pass out. Do dogs pass out?

So Jack is now terrified of balloons. I have to desensitize that poor puppy, because we have birthday parties up in here all the time. And what's a birthday party without a balloon or twenty?

We placed cheese near balloons on the floor, and he overcome his fears enough to eat three pieces, but decided that he'd just let the other dogs risk their lives to get the rest of it. Fail. (So much fail has gone on at this point. Why am I even allowed to own dogs?)

Our next step was to pretend that it's a birthday party, and scatter balloons all over the floor. He'd eventually learn that they're just there doing nothing and aren't out to eat him, right? Or he'd just sit in his crate and cower. So far, it's been kinda sorta successful. I'm hoping in another day or month or year he'll be over his life scarring incident inflicted upon him at the hands of the person he's supposed to love and trust above any other. But if not, I now know that if one is going to tie balloons onto the collar of a puppy, one should calmly hold the puppy to avoid Really Bad Horrible No Good Things happening. So really, the whole experience wasn't a complete fail. I learned something incredibly valuable.