Southern Tier Comedy Shop
Squirrelly Tormenters Drive Our Dog Nuts
By Jim Pfiffer
IllustratED by Filomena Jack
We have a backyard bird feeder outside our TV room that can be seen from two windows.
My wife, Shelley, and I enjoy watching a variety of birds flitter about and expertly use their tiny bird beaks to separate sunflower seeds from their husks.
Our front-row seat to avian dining brings us joy and laughter.
It brings our dog, Kody, stress and anger.
Kody, like most dogs, believes that it is his responsibility to growl, bark, whine and yip at anything that moves outside our windows, including, birds, leaves, floating dandelion seeds, insects, the wind, delivery men and clouds.
A feeder full of flippant, flirting and flapping fowl, just a few feet from Kody’s cold and moist nose, which is pressed against a window, drives him insane. We measure his level of insanity by counting his nose prints on the glass. The record is 200+.
While birds are his bane, squirrels are his nemesis, the squirrels know that Kody can’t get to them, so they tease, taunt and terrorize him with each piece of cracked corn they consume.
Kody goes nuts, running around while thinking, “What good is it being at the top of the food chain If I can’t yank that chain?”
Squirrels are intelligent. It’s likely that they sit around their tree-top nests plotting, “What say we go to dinner tonight at the Pfiffer feeder? They have some choice seeds, plus we can tease and torment their stupid dog. I’ll make reservations for 6 at the table next to the window. It’ll be a hoot.”
When the squirrels arrive at the feeder, they frolic about laughing and pointing at Kody through the window while teasing him in high-pitched squirrel taunts.
“Neener! Neener! Neener!” they sing. “Big stupid mutt can’t get us. We can do whatever we want, and you can’t get us. Neener! Neener! Neener!”
This makes Kody riotous. He runs from window to window, barking, crying and whining, wishing we would open the back door to let him out so he can give those smart-ass rodents hell.
His frustrations make the squirrels tease him even more. They roll around laughing, holding their tiny squirrel bellies, pointing at Kody and chanting “How much is that dumb doggie in the window?”
Illustration by Filomena Jack
Sometimes they put their little squirrel paws up to the sides of their heads, insert t their thumbs into their ears and flap their paws at Kody in the ultimate dog disrespect.
This makes Kody super-hyper angry as he growls, and leaps around the room, his flapping collar tags beating him in the jaw as his agitated tail knocks over plants, drinks and tabletop picture frames.
He frantically runs to Shelley or me with a pleading expression that says “Oh please, please, please, open the door and let me out just this once and I promise I’ll never chew your shoes again. Pleeeease. I promise!”
By this time, word has spread throughout the neighborhood, and other squirrels gather atop the nearby picnic table to enjoy the show. Sometimes, birds, chipmunks, cats and UPS carriers attend. It’s a regular backyard dinner theater.
One time I saw three squirrels stand side-by-side, on the nearby picnic table, with their rear ends facing the window as they wiggled their upright tails and little squirrel butts at Kody while looking over their shoulders and howling in hysterical laughter.
Kody got squirrel mooned.
I thought he was going to stroke out. The fur down the middle of his back stood up in a Mohawk haircut. He put his front paws on my lap and, you dog owners can understand this, gave me a head-tilted and ears-perked begging look that pleaded “Please open the back door, just a crack, pleeezzze!”
Eventually, Kody went Alfred Hitchcock-like psycho and clawed and pounded on the window glass trying to break through.
This made the squirrels laugh so hard that some of them wet themselves and rolled off the picnic table in hysterics.
Kody started banging and clawing at the window glass, so we had to pull down the blinds and close the curtains to reduce any window damage.
That caused the squirrels to chuck acorns and pinecones at the window while yelling “Can Kody come out and play? Haha.”
Winter will soon be here, and the feeder will become a popular wildlife dining spot. I fret that Kody will get so aggravated, that he will jump through the window, cutting himself and causing expensive repair bills.
I have two choices:
1. Keep the blinds and curtains shut. 2. Teach Kody how to use a door handle.
P.S.: Yesterday when refilling the feeder, I discovered that someone had arranged sunflower seed husks on the ground to spell “Kody is a wuss. Haha.”
I don’t know if it was squirrels, birds or it could have been the mail carrier. Doesn’t matter. The jokes on them.
Kody can’t read.
Haha.
About this Feature
Get more Jim Pfiffer humor on his Facebook page, his blog, FullOfWit, and his podcast The Viewsroom on Zoom with Pfif & AWAC.
To contact and learn more about Filomena Jack and to see her artwork go to www.FilomenaJackStudio.com.