Page 63 of Confessions of a Canine Drama Queen

Progress!

The ramp, however, was the easy bit. Getting her to jump off into a kiddie pool with some water in the bottom would be harder. It wasn’t the depth of the water—which would barely come over the top of her paw—but more that Molly tended to associate water with bath time.

And Molly and bath time werenotfriends.

“Do we get her to put a paw into the water so she knows what’s coming or just get her to jump over and find out for herself?” Keaton scratched his head.

Glancing around, the other groups were having mixed success. A group with an adorable bulldog was struggling because the dog had decided the ramp was his own personal nap location. Another group with an Australian shepherd, however, was already working with the beach ball.

“Either way is going to be tough.” August planted her hands on her hips. “Maybe ifyouhave a little splash in the pool and she can see you doing it, then she won’t be as scared by it?”

“You want me to splash around in the kiddie pool?” He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“I don’t mean strip down and jump in, Keaton.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, heat shot into her cheeks. That was sonotwhat she needed to imagine right now. “Just make a little splash with your hand.”

“Thanks for clarifying that,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. “Or else I would totally have taken my pants off in front of all these people.”

She let out a snort laugh and tried to cover it with her hand, but it didn’t do any good. He still heard and narrowed his eyes at her. But, being the trouper he was, he got down on all fours, peach-perfection ass in the air, and called for the dog.

“Hey, Molly, come here. Come!” He motioned and the husky trotted over, her treat-seeking nose sniffing. “Look at this awesome pool. It’s got water in it.”

He made a little splash with his hands and Molly backed up a step.“Waa waa waa.”

Her doggy noise sounded a lot like “why? why? why?”

“Don’t worry,” he said, still splashing. “You’re not going to have a bath.”

Uh-oh.

At the sound of the B-word, Molly flattened her ears and crouched down low, eyes narrowed at Keaton.“Wrooooooo.”

Noooooo.

“I saidnobath.” But his correction went ignored, as Molly skittered backward, bumping into August, who grabbed her collar so she didn’t flee.

“Stop saying that word! She doesn’t understand the use of it in the negative.” August let out a sigh. “It was clever of them to use a little water. That will separate the men from the boys, so to speak.”

“Or the dramatic huskies from the...” He looked toward the Australian shepherd, who was bounding around, doing everything required of it. “Whatever that unicorn of a dog is. Maybe we can put the treatinthe water?”

“Would you like to eat something that had been submerged in a blow-up pool?” August asked.

“Mmm. Good point.”

They both looked at Molly, who wore an expression that August jokingly called “the face of betrayal.” Molly liked to pull it out whenever she knew she was going to be asked to do something she didn’t want to do—go to bed when it was early, stop asking for treats, come home from the park or take a bath.

“Maybe we take the ball out of the water and try that next. Then we come back to this once she’s forgotten about your liberal use of the B-word,” August said. “Divert her attention for a bit.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Twenty minutes later they had not made much progress. Molly continued to eye the kiddie pool like it was a black hole waiting to suck her down and spit her out into hell, where endless bath times and other such horrors awaited her.

Keaton was getting frustrated.

As a competitive person by nature, he liked to win. But needing to be in control at all times meant hehatedrelying on other people. Or animals. Most people couldn’t be trusted, and the ones that could usually had an ulterior motive.

Do you think August has an ulterior motive?

No. She was one of a kind. A person who genuinely wanted to help others, who was caring and smart and witty and sensual and—

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