Reminiscing about the pets of my past and present

Having a large, lazy dog is the bomb-diggity. I remember years ago when J was a baby and we were living in a 4-plex in the Heights, a friend of mine thought we needed a dog…a puppy, no less…one that J could “grow up” with or “bond” with…whatever. We were presented with a rat terrier. I didn’t know a whole lot about dog breeds back then, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have told this friend to stuff the terrier where the sun don’t shine. We named him Cosmo, or as J used to say, “Choocho.” His name should have been Satan, though. He was soooo hyper…and annoying as hell… yip-yapping at all hours of the day and jumping around like a goddamned retard. And damn, that dog tore up everything! I mean EVERYTHING (my bras were his favorite….and I don’t know HOW the hell he got a hold of them most of the time). Wait, not everything. He had this little stuffed animal (a bear) that he dragged around everywhere…he didn’t tear that thing up. Anyway, to limit the damage, we used to lock him up in the bathroom when we weren’t home. But, my cousin thought it was cruel because there were no windows in there. So, we bought a baby gate. We would leave the bathroom door open and prop the baby gate there instead so he could “see out”. One day, after returning from work and such, we entered the apartment and stepped into WATER. There was water everywhere! I stared at that little fucker with murder in my eyes as he sat in a kitchen chair licking his ass. Turns out he had chewed through the hose connecting the toilet to the wall and water was gushing all over the place! In his haste to save himself and his teddy bear, he chewed a hole through the baby gate. He saved himself, but he couldn’t get his bear out – so there it was stuck in the hole in the gate, half in half out with its head almost completely decapitated from all the pulling and yanking Choocho had done to try to save it from the flood. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or kick him in the ass. Needless to say, that was the end of Choocho.

I swore off pets for a long time after that. Well, as long as it took to erase the hate. Which, as it happens, was about 3 years. That’s when we got Kali…a calico from the SPCA. Kali was not hyper like Choocho. Instead, she was anxiety-ridden. That cat would lose her hair if ANYTHING changed. I mean, seriously…if you moved a piece of furniture, that freak cat wouldn’t eat or drink or sleep for DAYS and her hair would fall out and leave these gross bald spots. God forbid you introduce her to another animal! Which, we did, of course, because we love to punish the weak. We adopted, Rosie, who looked like a cat but acted like a dog sometimes and a squirrel at others. Oh, those were the days.

So, now all the cats are gone and we have Harley. She’s the ideal dog…big, loveable and obedient. The only problem is that she is scared shitless of Hubber. We still haven’t been able to figure out why. I think it’s because he smells like evil. And, dogs can sense that sort of shit.