The Horrible Toenail Incident

Recently, I was cleaning the attic and found a box of our old dog’s toys. His diary was also in there, and I’d like to share an entry:

After dinner, my dad came looking for me, led me into the living room and knelt down on the floor next to me.

Okaaaay…

And then I see nail clippers on the coffee table.

Those clippers aren’t toys. They’re instruments of torture disguised as household items. I suddenly remember that I have somewhere else to be. Possibly outside. Possibly forever.

My dad lifts up my left front paw. I try to pull it back, but he’s got a firm grip. This isn’t playtime. This is a full-blown INCIDENT.

He spreads my pads apart, exposing my toenails to the open air.

“No, no, my dad,” I plead desperately. “Look at them…they look fine!”

I try to reason with him using eye contact and subtle trembling. Surely he can see there’s no emergency here.

He doesn’t listen. He picks up the clippers and brings them closer to my foot.

This can’t be happening.

And that’s when I decide it’s time to deploy my last‑ditch survival tactic… The Slipping Into Death Ploy.

The idea is simple: go completely limp, let all the bones fall out of your body and hope the human becomes uncomfortable enough to abandon the mission.

Slowly, I roll over. My body swings to the side, and I let my feet poke out the other side, so I sink completely to the floor. I let my entire body go as limp as I possibly can.

I’m no longer a dog. I’m a corpse.

My dad rolls his eyes. “Seriously? Are we gonna play this game?”

“I’m dead,” I moan. Surely no reasonable human would clip the nails of a dead dog.

“You’re not dead. Get up.”

I don’t move. “I am, too, dead,” I reply.

Then he says the words no dead dog ever wants to hear: “Okay then, we’ll do this the hard way.”

And he starts clipping my nail as I lie there — dead — on the floor. The man has no soul.

Things are getting desperate.

I howl like I’ve been shot. No, worse — like I’ve been tragically wounded in a heroic battlefield incident that future dogs will sing about in sad ballads. Somewhere, an emergency siren answers me out of respect. If I survive, it will be only to tell others of this unspeakable horror. If I don’t . . . please remember me as brave.

And loud.

John Meyers, 77, is currently petless and searching for his soul in Trinidad