A Diversion

"Hey Ma!"

"Yes Emma?"

"I'm  ready to do part two of my clinic"

"Um, gee Em, don't you think you have something more important to do right now?

"Like what?"

"Uh well, we're all really anxiously waiting for you to have a baby.  Wouldn't you rather do that first?"

"You keep going on and on about this 'baby' stuff, I don't know what you're talking about.  I think I should have another clinic."

"Well, OK I guess.  Anything to make you happy Emma.  What's the topic going to be this time?

"Advanced Scratching Techniques.  It's lots of fun."

"OK, have at it.  Just try not to go too fast, you know my typing skills aren't that great."

*sigh* It's sooo hard to get good help...."alright, I'll go slow.  Oh, and before we start, you should remind everybody of how to stretch properly, that will be useful here.  It's sooo important to stay in shape.  Although, for the life of me, I can't figure out how my own belly has gotten so darned big lately...."

"It will be alright Em, you'll have your girlish figure back just as soon as the baby is born and of course, you're right about the stretching, here is the link to your exercises...click here."

"Again with this 'baby' nonsense.   I hope you're feeling OK Ma, you keep repeating yourself.  Oh well, I'm just going to start my clinic, it will take your mind off obsessing about this mythical baby...."

"Hi Everybody.  Its me again, Donkey Em.... 

 
Today, I want to show you how you can direct your human to give you a really proper, all-over scratching.  

The secret here is to make sure that you have you're humans attention properly focused on you and she is responding to your cues.  This does take some practice and really needs to be done regularly so if your human tries to weasel out of this you may need to get creative in your persuasion methods. 

The most effective tool I have found, is to make her feel guilty about neglecting you.  Forlorn looks and odd contortions whilst attempting to reach a difficult spot often does the trick. 

Generally, if you can get your human started in the right direction with the simple butt scratch we already discussed, you can begin to add some simple directions.

The itchy spot is riiiiiight here...

You may have to be quite direct with your instructions, subtlety is lost on humans....

Don't forget to reward good behavior...

But be sure to correct your human immediately is she veers off course....

 Remember, lots of positive reinforcement...

And before long, you can be directing her wherever you have the worst itch... 

Ahhh, that feels good.

  

Thanks for coming to my clinic.

(I've been kind of worried about Mom lately.  She just won't give up on this "baby" notion and I thought this might help).