We went to the park yesterday. The kids gather stones to throw into the crick (Yes, Lovely Wife, the term is "crick" and you will have to do more than withold favors to get me to utter that profanity of normalcy "creek". It's been "crick" since I was a wee lad on Aunt Evelyn's farm and "crick" it shall remain until my dying days. And I will polute our childrens' vocabulary with this anachronistic styling if it's the last thing I do. It is one of my missions in life.) and the canine does his best to add flavor to every tree, bush, fallen stick and clump of grass in the forest.

We got to the crick and the boys joyfully ran over the bridge and back, the wooden structure shaking under their ministrations causing them to issue gleefully terrified screams. They tossed all of their stones into the water and went up the path to look for more. Lovely Wife was sitting on the bridge in "fall prevention" mode and I had leash duty. I went down the bank to the edge of the crick, thinking I would lead his dogginess into the water for a refreshing dip. No can do. He locked his four limbs in abject defiance. The look on his furry face was a mingling of absolute terror combined with the heartbreak of my apparent betrayal of him.

I tried coaxing. I tried leading. I tried pulling. No luck at all. In his doggy way he was telling me "No freakin' way, man! You'll have to pick me up and throw me off of the bridge before you get me in that water. And I will seriously bite you while you do it. In the event that I do not manage to sink my canines (no pun intended) into you I will piss on your bed when we get home. I am NOT going into the crick." (That's one of the reasons why I like this dog - he uses "crick" too.)

Now this is wierd. Dogs love water. This particular dog is part beagle. In all of my years of dog mastership I have never encountered a dog that wouldn't give up puppy treats for a week in exchange for a dip in a crick. Usually the problem is keeping them out of the water, not getting them into it.

Does he have a fear of water? He doesn't have any problem with baths. In fact he's the calmest dog I've ever seen while he's being bathed. On the other hand he absolutely refuses to do his "business" if there is even a hint of rain in the air. Maybe he's an aquaphobe, at least when the water is outdoors.

And if a dog can have hydrophobia, as it seems ours does, can't other animals have their own phobias? And wouldn't it be funny if you had, like, a squirrel who was afraid of heights? That little acrophobia impaired varmint would scamper up a tree, freak out and run back down but then go right back up when whatever freaked him out on the ground became apparent to his tiny squirrel brain and then back down, back up, and so forth. It would be just like the path a squirrel takes over a 4 lane highway but vertical instead of horizontal and with less danger of a car crash.

And how about a cat that's afraid of birds. Man, if you could give a cat some ornithophobia I'd be first in line for the pill. Our two felines take a savage delight in terrorizing Lovely Wife's birds. I'd hoot like a hillbilly to see one of them running for its life from the terrible caged avians.

The best would be a spider with arachnaphobia. It would be there all calm and happy, building its web, stringing the silk from one point to the next and all of a sudden it would realize "Holy shit! I'm a freaking spider! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

That would be so cool.