Daffney, the One-Legged Duck

With all the important news stories that have been breaking over the past month, I wanted to make sure that this did not fall between the cracks:

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Daffney the duck lost one foot to frostbite and was close to losing the other. So the owner of the 8-month-old Muscovy duck turned to Kirkwood Community College students to give Daffney a second chance at waddling. Linda Kennedy, the duck’s owner and also a surgical technology instructor at the college, asked her students to create a prosthetic foot for Daffney. On Tuesday, four dental hygiene students took a mold of Daffney’s stub foot. Surgical technology students will use the mold to design a fake foot and its method of attachment. Industrial technology students are making a movable joint and attachment system for the prosthesis, and veterinary staff will install it, Kennedy said. “I’ll take any patient, at this point,” said first-year student Marta Miller.

Is’nt it great that there are no sick people in Ceder Rapids so now they have to find wounded ducks to treat?

I’m not seeing any time/effort in that story that one would normally expect to be devoted to treating people, Zebra. It looks to me like an instructor was handed an opportunity for her students to take on a novel project. I don’t doubt that it will prove instructive. Would you prefer that they practice on people at that stage of their education?

It’s a strange (and slightly silly) story, but then I imagine that’s why Eve posted it.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could somehow introduce Daffney to Halvsie, the Two-Legged Dog?

Pretty much my first thought, when I saw this thread, and who’d started it. It could be like some sort of semiambulatory children’s show.

The commercial breaks could be introduced by Twiggy, the Waterskiing Squirrel!

Or - oh shit, this is even better - Daffney could be Halvsie’s hideous cyborg arch-nemesis! They thought they could make her stronger, faster, better, but they didn’t count on the procedures driving her MAD!

Mightily, Halvsie doffs his glasses and conservative suit and, cape billowing in the wind, plops over and paddles around in circles like Curly for a half-hour.

Meanwhile, Daffney clomps menacingly like Robo-Long John Silver toward the White House, servos whirring, metal scraping, her quacks echoing (echoing, goddammit!) like the very horn of Gabriel. Soon she will RULE THE WORLD!

Halvsie, save us!

I was doing my best not to bring up Halvsie. Really I was. Too late now.

Barking desperately, Halvsie calls in a chopper, which drops him directly in Daffney’s path down the Mall…then plops over and paddles around in circles like Curly for a half-hour.

Daffney takes a short flight over the heroic dog, and continues on her march toward global domination

Halvsie: “She gets cybernetic limbs, and she can fly. Why can’t I get a $&@^!%# crutch?”[sup]*[/sup]

[sup]*[/sup]Translated from the Doggish.

Ooooh, maybe Twiggy can be Daffney’s evil henchsquirrel, doing her evil bidding, like tipping Halvsie over!

That has to be the cushiest henchjob ever.

Daffney: “Twiggy, tip that meddling dog over.”
<Twiggy waits, Halvsie plops over>
Daffney: “Good work, my loyal minion. Now, on to Phase II of my Master Plan!”
<Daffney laughs maniacally, sounding like a cross between Donald Duck and Vincent Price with a head cold>

For those of you new to the Boards, the life, times and adventures of Halvsie, the Two-Legged Dog.

Do you think we can get some kind of romance going between Halvsie and Daffney—kind of a good/evil, Batman/Catwoman sort of thing? Sexual frisson?

We had the same thing happen to one of our ducks, not that uncommon in cold climates. We had provided shelter for them, but somehow she still got caught. Never thought of fitting her with a prosthesis, we just changed her name to Peggy. She seemed to adapt reasonably well, at leat to the name change. She hatched a good size brood of ducklings the next spring. Not much of a swimmer, however.

Circled the drain, huh?

When things get hot and heavy, they’d end up making the Beast with Three Legs.

Yes, but how many quacks?

So let me get this straight - Daffney is a lame duck?
(I’m sorry, I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. It’s my father’s influence, really. )

“You’re a criminal, Quackwoman, nothing more, and I’m bringing you in.” Batdog eyed her sternly. His grim words seemed to strain to escape his teeth, which had been clenched in determination since the fatal night that a mugger had murdered both his parents, then shot his two right legs clean off in an improbable feat of thuggish marksmanship.

“Bringing me in, Bark Knight?” asked Quackwoman. For a duck, she had quite a seductive voice, Batdog had to grudgingly admit. “You can bring me into that Batkennel of yours any time you’d like. But I’m afraid I won’t be going to jail tonight. I find being cooped up rather…fowl.” The world’s greatest two-legged dog detective called upon all his training to resist Quackwoman’s animal lure, which made even horrible puns sound enticing enough to cause problems in the utility-belt region. Could even a lifetime of near psychopathic devotion to exploring - exceeding - the limits of canine achievement in the realms of deduction, combat, and paddling around in circles like Curley protect Batdog from the one variable he had not considered - his kink for hot interspecies lovin’?

Quackwoman took a step back to the edge of the Gotham rooftop, and Batdog, trained in the deadly arts by the world’s most accomplished masters of Shih Tzu, dropped into a defensive stance, ready for anything. As she moved, Quackwoman’s form-fitting outfit slid and bunched along the curves of her neck, her leg (her one leg, the other having been lost fighting in an uneasy alliance at the Bark Knight’s side against the maniacal Penguin), her breast, her wings-

Wait, her wings? Shit.

Quackwoman leapt from the roof, silhouetted against the full moon, and fled on slim, muscular pinions. “You just won’t slide off my back,” she called out. “I look forward to our next rendezvous, Batdog. Or should I call you…Halvsie?”

His secret uncovered! The key to his ruination in the hands of the diabolical Quackwoman! But how had she found out? What would she do now? Batdog fled from the roof, his mind racing like a runaway chuck wagon.

Reader! Be back in 30 days for… THE BARK KNIGHT UNLEASHED!