July 28, 2009; Pretty Pictures of The Future

...the horror...the horror...

The Mooks don't get one thing: I can always understand them. They vaguely suspect I understand more English then I let on (beyond "sit" "bad dog" "stop that" etc.) but they don't know I understand everything in French, English, a little Italian and some pieces and bits of other languages. (You pick this up all your life—puppy mills, pounds, owners, alleys, during walks—and dogs absorb information far better than humans; it's the nose/brain thing.)

This is a valuable tool because it keeps me in the loop—indeed, so far in the loop, I'm pretty much the one twirling the lariat. It can be fun. Like the other day, Mook A was repeating a good joke to Mook B: "If your cat goes missing, don't bother to put up posters. 1) We don't care. 2) Your cat is dead." You can't beat a good dead cat joke.

But knowing the languages can also be irritating. For instance, we were all out on the balcony the other day, enjoying the warmth, listening to the rustle of the leaves and keeping squirrels away, when the Mooks started talking about me in French. They were discussing the fact that I was getting closer and closer to being able to open the screen door by myself. Indeed, I just run at it like mad, smash my nose into it and it jumps back a good foot before slamming shut on me. Then their nastiness began.

Mook A: You realize, we're going to have to get back into the habit of closing the inside door so he can't get out.

Mook B: Why?

A: As brilliant as the dog is, he's more like a retarded child—he doesn't understand consequence; he just goes for it. What would happen is we'd be out one day and he would run for the door, get it open, zip halfway through and the door would close before his big porker ass could get through.

(As A loses more weight—19 pounds and counting!!!! he never refrains from telling the world—the comments about my "porkiness" get more frequent. I don't like it.)

A: (Continuing) And then you know how he is. He'd start shrieking—

B: —shit—

A: —yeah. And every fucking neighbour would be out on their balconies and in the alley and calling the cops and the SPCA and we'd come home to find our door broken down and a citation for animal cruelty.

B: (Laughing) You're exaggerating!

A: Oh! You think? How about the time that he got his front paws and shoulders through the railings of the balcony and the only thing holding him back from a two-story fall was that gigantic arse of his! What did he do 'til I saved him? Panic and shriek!

B: ...good point.

A: I told you: he's a little bit of a tard: an idiot savant. Never underestimate both his smarts and his profound stupidity.

I had to work very hard in pretending to have my attention elsewhere as this went on. If they ever figure out I understand French, I lose a valuable weapon in this battle. But I can't say I was as amused as they seemed to be by this conversation.

Then A picked me up, looked me straight in the eyes and this time switched to English. "You know what would happen if you went back to the SPCA, Little One?" He waited to make sure I was listening. Oh! I was listening. "Your file would include the notation that your previous owners had had you for more than six months but still had not been able to control you. That would mean that no normal person would adopt you. Because of this, you'd find yourself owned by the only kind of person who would adopt you: a lunatic. Let me describe this person: 20-22, maybe, male, halfwit. He would tell his parents—he still lives with them in a basement room—he would take care of you, but he wouldn't. You'd hardly ever eat and when you did half the things you do here, he'd beat you like a gong."

My mouth went dry. You've got to say one thing about A: he paints a vivid picture. But it got more vivid. "When he was drunk on his parents liquor, he'd get sad and lonely and horny. He'd spend the first half of the night dealing with the reason no girl will touch him: his acne. Then, in a fit of drunkenness and horniness, he'd probably sodomize that fat ass of yours."

I could smell the guy's room: old sweat, pizza, feet, spunk. I could see the guy going from cuddles to...oh! my God!

The Mook went on. "And one day, his parents would find him hanging in the close where he'd pulled a David Carradine: auto-erotic asphyxiation. They'd only know he was dead because you'd be at his bedroom door, bitching for food, as usual, and bothering them."

He stopped then and sipped his ice tea. I glanced over at B who was smiling like this was hilarious. A concluded. "You think the parents would adopt you? Ha. Ha. They would take you back to the SPCA where you would be received as unadoptable and then...oh...so...gently...the big sleep."

The last words were a whisper that floated off into the evening sky.

He hugged me hard and said, "So try not to be a tard, you little peckerhead!" and he and B laughed and both cuddled and kissed me. It was the first time I think I needed the affection.

I could have used it later too when I had the nightmare, but the Mooks were sleeping soundly.

June 22, 2009; My Life Before Part III

How did I end up with the Mooks when I was so happy with Frank? I'll tell you how!

Though Frank had had a stroke, he managed to knock the phone over and press in 911. People knew things were wrong; cops came, ambulance came, and off he went, not a soul looking back at me—indeed, one emergency worker put me in the bathroom and closed the door like I was shit or something. A day later Karrlah showed up to pick me up, drive me off, and stash me in some unused little room in her basement where I was given a blanket and fed. I was used to this kind of place, but wasn't particularly pleased that I was back in one. A couple of times a day a maid came in, changed my water and food, picked up my messes and went off. She tried to be nice to me but I could tell that I was just another damn duty for an immigrant servant who was already being worked to the bone in the rest of the house.

A week passed like this, and then Frank came to join me in the basement. Not in that little room, but in a kind of bedroom that looked like it was just part of the playroom down there. We were going to live there together, for a bit. As it turns out Frank's stroke wasn't insanely serious but he wasn't able to live on his own either so here we were with nothing but the maid, a black and white TV with no remote and no cable and visits from a home nurse, and—once a day—a visit from her highness, Princess Karrlah. Frank looked relatively okay though he couldn't walk right yet and he certainly couldn't talk right. In fact, everything he said came out, "Silly cunt," much to the delight of all the women around him. Karrlah took this especially badly and would always leave the room crying.

Somehow Frank communicated to his daughter that I needed to be taken outside for some air, from time to time, and although I hated leaving the old man behind this sure sounded like a great idea to me. So that's when I met Mr. Karrlah.

If you can imagine the worst kind of yuppie asshole—$200 haircut, polished nails, tailored everything and Italian shoes—and throw 100 pounds too much on him, acne and grease in the haircut (and into his way of talking), you've got Brian (pronounced Bree-an, the cunt). With Karrlah, Brian was fighting waaaaay above his weight (no matter how much money he made as some kind of investment banker) and he knew it. So when Karrlah said Jump! Brian would say Shall I do splits with that, Milady?

So Brian had to walk me. And Brian hated me with every fiber of the tonnage he was carrying about. We were quite a sight: me, the little tugboat, yanking that overblown Andrea Doria around—both of us heading for a disaster.

At home, Frank could do nothing for me, but I could cuddle on his lap and I could see in his eyes that he loved me so, so, much and I could hear it in his voice as he murmured, "Silly cunt."

It was in the second week...Brian was about to walk me when we ran into Karrlah on the way out and she flashed him a look that could have meant a million things. He just nodded like the poor loser-in-love that he was. The walk was different this time because he took me in the car first and we drove away a bit before we got out for my business. I yanked, he yanked back, I yanked, and then he wasn't yanking back and suddenly the leash got away from him. He looked at me. I looked at him. I ran a bit. He looked at me. I ran a bit. Was he playing? I ran toward him. He looked at me, bent over, took my leash and collar off, and said, "Go and play!" Brian wasn't any kind of guy you play with but I was game and ran all around him in wider and wider circles. There wasn't much chance of him running after me, huge as he was, after all.

And then...!

And then he just got in the fucking car and drove off! I sat on the sidewalk and went, "Hm" wondering what it all meant. I was sitting there for a long time, thinking Brian might come back, but he didn't. So I decided to walk home. Problem: I had no idea where home was and for a day just wandered through the city, eating garbage and drinking puddle water and wishing I was home in bed with Frank, toasty-warm and surrounded by his good smells. But soon it looked like Frank, like my Mom, Ceecee and other little joys, was a thing of the past and I became an alley dog. A good alley dog. I loved it. The freedom of just roaming about, not anyone yanking me on a leash, of running in and around and out of a park. Fuck, you don't know what that feels like 'til it's gone. And of course, after a week, it was gone.

The rest you know. SPCA, Mooks...yadda yadda yadda. I wonder what happened to Frank. He can't be happy. Not with all those silly cunts. Not without me. And let me just say this and get on with my life: I think of that smelly old fucker every day and miss him like mad. He taught me everything I know.

June 17, 2009; My Life Before, Part I

The first picture the Mook ever took of me at the SPCA - but there was so much more to my life before that

I have a bad stomach and am feeling a little under the weather. (Could be the ants I ate on the balcony yesterday.) So I've been pretty much lying around and day-dreaming and a lot of it has been thinking about my life before the Mooks.

My first name was JR-14-22-09-D when I was born in the puppy mill. Jack Russell-sire 14-dame 22-litter 9 for the dame-fourth born (D). The first thing I remember was the warmth of my mother's belly as I fought for her teats with four other siblings. The first thing I saw, when my eyes started to open, was that my mother—though still a young bitch—looked very old and worn down. She also had mange and was very, very dirty. But my brothers and sisters loved her a lot and though a fight to get to a teat is a serious thing, once fed, it turns into fun.

The first thing I felt was a broken heart because, within a week or so of us all opening our eyes, Mom was taken away from us to prepare her for her next litter. My siblings and I squealed and screamed for a day or two, but eventually we learned to make do with the sugary milk they put out for us, and with the crazy playing we did together in that pen. I loved them all very much and, when you're young and barely walking (tottering about really) you glom on to any beating heart that's near.

Though there were five of us in the litter—three males and two females—two died in pretty short order. It was usually in the night-time when it got ice cold in the place and most of the dogs—the smart ones—huddled together for warmth. Another of my siblings, who wasn't really right in the head and continued to walk funny even after he should have been able to do better, was taken away. That left two of us: my sister C, and me. I called her Ceecee and she just called me Dee (because, let's face it, Deedee is not very butch and you need to be as butch as you can in those places).

Soon I was being taken out of the pen and walked about. I learned that I was a premium dog: a dog which could actually be sold in a pet shop instead of to a lab or to the white trash who came and went at the mill trying to find the perfect fighting dog, guard dog, or vicious companion. Ceecee was also seen as premium, though less so because she was a female. This would have been a good thing for her if she had had her pedigree papers, but there was not much of a chance of either of us getting anything like that in a place like this.

As I walked about the mill, I saw some of the horrors of the place: how dirty it was, how everything we drank or ate was wrong (tainted meat, polluted water) and just made us all sick and made the place dirtier. I also met some of the other premium dogs: there were dobermans and dalmatians, poodles and lots and lots of labs because of the popularity of the book Marley and Me. There was also no shortage of JRs and that was because of the TV show Frasier and the film My Dog Skip. (Here's some interesting trivia: The dog who played Old Skip in that movie, Moose, was actually the father of the dog who played young Skip, Enzo; and Moose also played Eddie on Frasier...you can see there aren't a ton of us decent JRs around.)

The other kinds of premium dog being bred at the mill were real beasts. Unlike the psycho dogs who were bred to be sold to the white trash for fifty bucks, these were muscular, nasty dogs with good teeth and good coats bred to be sold for serious purposes (protecting very rich homes and attacking very dangerous enemies).

It was during one of my training walks around the Rottweiler enclosure that I found out what had probably happened to my brother who had been taken away because he wasn't right. As I watched, they brought a couple of really fucked-up poodle puppies into the pen and just let them loose among the huge dogs. Within seconds they were eaten alive.

Sorry...can't go on. I'll tell you the rest next time.

June 14, 2009; Rendering Accounts

Will freedom ever come?

I was sitting on the balcony, looking at life come and go and dozing, when Mook A started to talk to me. Actually, he was talking to himself. He's the only one who thinks I listen. But this time I paid a little attention because there was a tone of discontent in his soliloquy.

"You're starting to work out, here, but I just wish you had some sense of what you have actually cost us. Idiot dogs like you don't come cheap."

I'm getting used to being called an idiot by him. People always assume you're an idiot if you ignore their blather. But he went on and gave me a kind of shopping list.

"First there was the $200 some odd that the SPCA charged us for you, your chipping and castration." Well, boo-fucking-hoo, I thought. "Then in the first week there was the reward of $100 we gave that woman who caught you when you escaped." She could take that 100 and shove it up her twat, the bitch. "Let's not forget the random damage: $70 for the XBox controller, $20 for the iPod earphones, assorted plastic items for about another $50." Yadda yadda yadda. "Then the toys. The $15 ball you ate on the first sitting, the $15 knotted rope you destroyed, the $20 supposedly-indestructible squeeze toy you squeezed the shit out of and, of course, the replacement toys: two Kongs for $30." Stupid fuck doesn't get it: if you don't want me destroying everything in the house, give me some decent playthings, asshole!

But he went on. "Let's not forget the various food fiascos! Thirty containers of Cesar you loved but pretty much shat all over the place. Two bags of premium dog food you decided to ignore. That's—what—another $80!" Yeah, well, I don't give a flying fuck if you call it "premium"—if it tastes like fucking cardboard, I ain't eating it.

"So what are we talking about here, idiot dog? Some six-hundred-fucking-dollars! For a fucking pound dog! A fucking pound dog!" And on he went and I pretty much stopped listening until: "Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't have left you there to sleep it off...if you know what I mean." I did know what he meant and thought it was a bit peckerish on his part. "You're lucky you're a funny dog, even if you are an idiot." He concluded.

You're lucky I don't rip your throat out as you sleep, fuckwad.

That's when Mook B came out on the balcony, picked me up and I just continued my nap. I'll show you funny later, asswipe, I thought as I drifted off.

February 20, 2009; What I'm dealing with...

Russian Granny Léo

As the humiliation continues (see the photos...gawd!), let me tell you what I'm dealing with:

Mook A was talking on the phone with a friend and explaining the process they took to get me out of the pound and into their own prison. Mook A had to fill in forms and there was one block that asked "What are you planning for your new dog" followed by a list of options with little squares where you had to put a checkmark: working dog, play with children, guard dog, breeding. At the end of this list was another square for "Other" with a line to write something in. Mook A wrote: Love.

Street Léo

This goes to show you what fucking Pollyannas I'm dealing with. I wonder about the imaginary world they live in: lollipops instead of trees and green licorice instead of grass. I can deal with real people in a real universe but I'm not sure what to do with these two Space Cadets.

Meanwhile was watching the news last night (hey! what do you think we're doing when you force us to lie on your laps, dammit!) and saw that that black guy was visiting the country. He looks okay, especially compared to the mega-Mook who was president before. I'm not saying someone should have shot that last one (assassinations are messy things and usually make martyrs out of the worst assholes) but if anyone deserved to have a shoe pitched at his bean it was him. 

Don't like the politics? Sue me! What the fuck else do I have to do in this stupid little apartment where, apparently, life is so nice that everyone farts clouds of candy floss.

Intello Léo

Awaiting the Horror; February 9, 2009

What would you call a relationship that begins with you being castrated? Fucked, right? So I am in a pen at the SPCA, minding my own business. (They'd picked me up wandering about in a very rich neighbourhood, but nobody had ever claimed me. Just as well...the people I lived with before had no idea...) The two middle-aged men (what's up with that!?) come in and I do my little dance, right—there's always a possibility they have food—and they do the standard-issue "Awwww" thing that everyone does before they leave me alone, minding my own business as I said.

But these two do have food and take me into the visiting room and dandle it in front of me, the bastards.

So I sit and there's that "Awww" shit again and before you know it, they're taking me for a little walk. That's when I knew this wasn't just a couple of mooks coming for a visit. They didn't know I understood French...Lord knows, I wish I didn't.

 

Now I wait. It's happening tomorrow. And I wait.