>Because dogs are perverts, too

>A few summers ago, my 12-year-old stepdaughter (then 10) and her friend, Libby, were playing in the backyard when I heard a shrieking that sent me dashing for the back door.

“What’s wrong?! What is it?” I shouted, looking around the yard. I was met with a scene that has burned itself forever into the tangled wires of my brain.

Libby lay before me, pulling her way up the stairs of the deck with her hands. Attached to one skinny, blue jeaned leg was… Dipper. Our decidedly neutered beagle. He was busy humping her calf with a wild abandon.

“Get him OFF ME!!” she shouted hysterically. “GET HIM OFF ME!!!!”

Nearby, 12-then-10 stood laughing uproariously. And of course, I did what any good stepmother would do. I laughed until I cried.

Libby, thank God, was a good sport. A budding slapstick comedienne by nature, she made exaggerated faces of horror and reached out to me in desperate supplication.

“Hellllllp meeeeee…” she pleaded, reaching out her arms to me. “HELP MEEEEEEE PLEEEASE!”

The moment I finally managed to extricate Dipper from his leg o’ lovin’, Libby raced for our back yard hammock to escape his feverish clutches. Undeterred, Dipper followed close on her heels. As Libby leaped into the hammock, Dipper jumped on top of her.

And then he peed. On Libby. Which wasn’t so funny (or so I had to pretend). But after a change of clothing, she took it fairly well, even agreeing to go back outside and let him do it again (the leg grabbing and the screaming, not the peeing) so that we could get it on video.

This was only the first of many episodes between Dipper and various prepubescent girls who’ve been lured into our backyard over the last two years. I don’t know what it is about their gangly shins that sends our ball-less beagle into paroxysms over what might’ve been. I don’t know why he only sniffs disdainfully at the legs of family members, small children and adults. I know only that when tweenage girls come over to play outside, our canine knave must be banished to the garage so that innocent maidens may retain their virtue.

Unless the maiden in question is Kelsey Lombardi.

Kelsey started out nice enough. But by seventh grade, she had morphed into a cheesy Paris Hilton wannabe, using a fake California-style accent and generally driving me from of the room on the rare occasions that she was in our house.

“Like, are you going to eat that?” she asked my 15-year-old stepdaughter (then 12) about the sandwich I had just made her for lunch one summer day. “Because it looks good, but the calories. Why do you think my stomach is so flat?” She shook her highlighted-at-home hair and patted her tummy, sucking in hard. Pushing her own sandwich away, she turned to me. “Lucinda, do you have any cottage cheese? Or just… Lettuce?”

I gritted my teeth and said nothing, busying myself with unloading the dishwasher so that I didn’t say something really nasty about how guts come and go, but an underbite is forever. Fortunately, my stepdaughter was immune to Kelsey’s preteen propaganda. She looked calculatingly at Kelsey for a moment, then…

“Lindsay, can we let Dipper out and play with him?”

I turned to my brilliant stepdaughter with a huge smile. “Sure!” I said too brightly. “Of course! Yes! I’ll let him out for you!”

“Come on, Kelsey,” 15-then-12 said. “Dipper is really sweet.”

“Um, okay,” Kelsey said. “I just love puppy dogs.”

The girls headed for the back yard while I went to the garage to release our favorite four-legged lothario. As he trotted out the back door, he stopped, lifting his nose to the breeze. Oh yes. Love was definitely in the air. Pausing only to let out one long, lustful howl, Dipper took off in amorous pursuit of his unsuspecting prey.

“What the…” I heard Kelsey say from the deck. “AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE! Get him OFF ME! GET HIM OFF ME!!!!!”

Believe me, I sprang into action. I simply had to find my camera.