DON'T MESS WITH THE CLAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes what really seems like a good idea can backfire disastrously in your face.  Such was the case of THE CLAW.
Now before you imagine a device of horrible torture--let me assure you that the claw is completely harmless. Actually it's less than harmless---it's a toy.
I guess I better start from the beginning and explain it all.
Every morning, when they enter their kennels my fur babies get treats in their KONG toys that keep them occupied  until the pet sitter arrives. As long as they get a cookie and some peanut butter in their little red KONGS, all is right with the world. But when it comes time to retrieve the KONGS, I have a bit of trouble getting down low enough to reach into the kennels for them. Sooooo, I looked at one of those extended reaching, grabber things that they sell on TV. TWENTY BUCKS!!!!!!!! Not!
So on one of my GOODWILL trips, I stumbled across basically the same thing, except it was a toy grabber arms with a robot claw on the end. It resembles one of the hands on the robot from LOST IN SPACE. I can stick that sucker right on into the kennels, snap up the kong, and be done with it--AND ALL FOR 50 CENTS!!
There's only one thing about the claw--it scares the dogs and the cats to death. If I want to give them a good taste of ALPHA me, all I have to do is reach for the CLAW and they scatter. I get the same reaction from a fly swatter--but that's another story.
So the other morning, Lucy the lab, my oldest pain in the butt, decided that she was not getting in her kennel. She had herself planted on the bed and absolutely refused to budge. After about fifteen minutes of fighting with her, I WENT FOR THE CLAW!!!!
Unfortunately, when I reappeared with the claw, I had not noticed that little conquistador Hines, the rat terror (I mean terrier) had followed me back into the bedroom.  I gave the claw ONE SNAP and got TWO RESULTS. Lucy flew past me out of the bedroom, and Hines flew DIRECTLY UNDER THE BED. Talk about a back fire!  I had one who couldn't get into a kennels fast enough and another who was having a nervous breakdown under the box springs.
It took me thirty minutes to coax Hines out with a pretzel stick and let him know that Daddy loved him and that the CLAW wasn't going to get him.
We were about thirty minutes late getting to work that morning--and I was in dutch with not only Hines and Lucy, but the Better Half too.
So the moral of this story is, you can catch more Hines with honey than with vinegar.
In other words, when you can use a pretzel stick--DON'T USE THE CLAW!!!!!