11 Jan 12 Blogged

blogged

Dear Pepe,

Listening to Band of Horses, "No One's Gonna Love You (More than I do)". Dogs in backyard pen fed, freshly watered, the gorgeous orange-white stray tabby tomcat topped off with fresh H20, his bowl of vittles half full, so no need to replenish. When I fed the dogs, turns out Courtney had restocked dog food with top brand but affordable Beneficial, as I'd gotten last time, some 3 weeks or so ago. Chicken variety or beef, something mainstream tasting, but the meal mix includes veggies, and is softer. All the penned dogs are senior or near senior age. Two of three are girl dogs, beotches. Irony, those 2 are the sweeter of the set, with one sweeter than the other one who must raise up, bear her teeth and do battle against the onslaught of the other dog, a male, Big Mac. Chance is not yet fixed, like the other b***h. 

Chance is the only one of the 3 outdoor toy dogs that will whine, beg, roll over and wet herself when you pet her. She is shameless about wanting you to touch her. A b***h who knows what she wants, not afraid to display public affection or ecstatic gratitude. I wonder sometimes that she doesn't nearly lose all control and have a bowel movement. Probably not, she is a lady. She resembles a red fox. If she were a person, I'd imagine she could be a model, which perhaps is how she mesmerized her former owner to rescue her. Pick me, I'm beautiful, love me. Except, the spell wore off, and her owner abandoned her with a family member and relocated with a new love, a human. Her owner didn't look back to confess she'd forgotten someone she once loved.

~Band of Horses. No One's Gonna Love You (More than I do):

Big Mac is a chihuahua who surely appears to be long lost relative of the Taco Bell chihuahua dog. Big Mac just wasn't smart enough to negotiate a deal to trade his canine cognitive powers for a career as an actor of epic proportion, such that viewers the world over would forever associate his mug and breed as the comic cool canine who could hang with the fast-food culture and fast nightlife after-party bingeing. The Taco Bell dog surely raised the game for his brethren's market value. 

Eating instant comfort food, grits, butter with about a tablespoon of cream cheese for silkier texture and extra panache. You know, culinary sophistication, voilà gourmet grits. Ran out of coffee and am drinking caffeinated tea. Lipton. On my last Earl Grey tea bag, saving it for that extra special booster shot of tranquility that aroma brings. Maybe it's the distinctively aromatic bergamot. 

Avoiding with obvious repercussions getting some official work done. One of the perks of freelancing, working from home, is endless opportunities to manage your work habits. Free rein to hustle at will or flop down and gaze out the window, dabble with personal pursuits like Internet writings. Lotsa free rein, where like the most adventuresome and purposeful pooch, you can wind up your leash and near strangle yourself. Self strangulation not being an attractive way to play or die in my book. 

Since when did self asphyxiation splinter off from the usual distasteful S&M bondage with others. It's as if someone was either so self absorbed, socially awkward, narcissistic or hellbent, that they deflated a social play date for pleasure into solo play that reinvented the game Twister. I can't imagine discovering a loved one dangling in the aftermath of what surely may be private pleasure but in the light of day, they knew, was far-fetched in the realm of even porned out mainstream debauchery.

I feel only a twinge of guilt about the other dog, the dog of the manor. The youngest dog, Lord Byronette I'll crown her, also a toy dog like the outdoor dogs. But this dog was rescued from the flea market puppy mill, so small she was palm held for weeks like a treasured book. Except, she turned out to be infested with heartworms. Pretty as a button, adorable, most innocent eyes full of giving and receiving affection and love.... and a rotund belly chalk full of worms like nobody's bathroom business. It took weeks of heartworm warfare, but as of late, she is now spritely and adorable sans "rice" or "friends". 

I don't cringe so much when I reach out to pet her in answer to her frantic pleas for love. There is something about her crying that sounds like she knows her owner mother, not me, has somehow fallen out of love with her to the point of obsession. Her "mom" no longer madly, truly, deeply in love with her "baby". When this dog sounds her alarm of angst, it is like someone has stabbed her in the doggie heart, about the size no doubt of a miniature Georgia pecan. No wait, more like a raisin. 

I forget sometimes she is so small because she does have a big heart if you measure by how much she carries on. She doesn't cry out as much as when she was first trying to stop the love train from derailing her and leaving her behind in her 'dog room' as her owner increasingly slept and lived in the house without her.  I know the misery of a jilted woman. All lovelorn humans do. Loss may be universal, and sometimes animals 'smile' and cry out in ways that transcend language barriers. 

Every now and again, I hear soliloquies from Lord Byronette, musing about lost love. After I deliberately visit her to show some love, she loses her doggie mind in gratitude and showers me with love, licks, and minor springs of piss. Her tail wags, eyes bug, and she is leaping, running, pleading, yapping all at once in millimeters proximity or on my hands. I am the minister and she is confessing from her prison that she was guilty of being loved as a "baby" requiring extra care and attention, then near abandoned as a just another dog. She may be having bouts of identity crisis. Can she love any harder? look any cuter? Is there nothing she can do to recover the love? Where is the love? 

I feel guilty when I walk away and leave her to her fate as not my dog. But I'm a cat person, not a dog person anyway, and imperfect as her life may be, it could be worse. I would not have rescued her from the puppy mill. It only encourages the mills to keep producing. Buy one or rescue one? The puppy farm has already got new pups in production, and the bench warmers are waiting to be squeezed into the game where it's always about money. Puppy hearts be damned. You can't encourage the corrupt pet commerce system. 

I'm thinking of a cult right now. I'm thinking of B and him. Dog #1 and Dog #2. The latter, a love of my life I've had to let go over and again for biting fits. I am perpetually trained in trying to train him not to bite me. The former, the bad dog who I discovered to sheer horror was a wolf. A werewolf. Thankfully pushed him away with silver bullets. I wear garlic now, from the pores with culinary mission.  

I just recently realized it's true, cults of personality exploit people, especially those who are tender of mind and or heart. That like all cons, including animal mills, while you have your guard down and someone manipulates and then pulls your heart strings, they are pulling you in for the financial squeeze. First they massage your heart and mind. If you open your heart, you will open your pockets. An exchange. So you have to keep your mind not open but alert to guard your heart. You have to be responsible for supporting or not supporting what you think, and act accordingly. 

It's not you, romantic young pup who maybe scribes in the sky with barks and whines, near howls, like a romantic poet, but your owner who is responsible for the life you no longer anticipate but only dream about. When I see her frolicking on her own in the dog room or the semi pen fashioned in the corner by the drafty door, I know she's adjusted. Life goes on. While we watch TV and her owner is lounging, or I am in the office, or even while we are in bed, perhaps asleep, there is a sudden cacophony of squeaking. Lord Byronette biting the hell out of her squeaky chew toy.

Author's Note

*some names changed.
Photo courtesy morgueFile,
http://www.morguefile.com/creative/earl53
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