Bad Parenting

Brandon is so excited he can barely speak. "So Pain Cake climbs onto the top rope when the ref isn't looking and drops onto Big Beef with his patented Jagged Edge."

"Pain Cake?"

"Yeah. He flattens you like a pancake, and it's extremely painful."

"I see."

"Then Captain Atomic runs out of the locker rooms with a German Shepherd and chases everyone out of the ring. And guess what happens next..."

"Mm-hm."

"Mom, you aren't listening!"

"I'm listening. I'm just driving. Go on."

"This is literally the greatest thing that's happened in my entire life and you don't even care."

When One’s Owners Don’t Get It

Hank, a large German Shepherd, wouldn’t hurt a fly; his owners knew he was a good dog, so they let him roam their street with a leash on, but nobody holding it.

However, Hank learned that many viewed with suspicion the apparent lack of human-affiliation that his unmanned leash seemed to signify.

Small children would take one look at him and turn to quivering jelly. Dogs on human-attended leashes preemptively barked so much, their owners had to reroute their walks.

Hank finally learned to bring the loose end of his leash to his owners whenever he wanted to walk around.From Guest Contributor Susmita Ramani

Susmita’s work has appeared in over thirty different publications, including 100 Words, and she has a novella coming out in 2026. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two teenage daughters, and a dozen pets. See her WordPress for fiction and Instagram for poetry.