Eat Dog

Don’t look her in the eye. Don’t give her anything. She will have you believe she deserves a piece of chicken, a Milk Bone, a walk, a trip to the dog park, a ride in the truck, a five-hour break from your desk to play fetch with her squeaky toy in the yard. She will guilt you, too. She will tell you, “Look at what those bastards have done to me! Splashed white paint on half of my body! Everybody thinks I’m ugly now!” You can tell her, fifty times a day, that she’s beautiful outside and inside and that everybody who meets her really appreciates her and thinks she’s smart and talented and engaging and worthwhile in every conceivable way, but this will never satisfy her. She will always look you in the eye and say, “You don’t really mean it.”

Stupid dog.

Disturbing trend with her of late: She somehow manages to appear at the dog park in Silver Lake most every day and she not only has been improving her abilities to scrap and to work deals and to establish protection arrangements with her fellow criminals in the prison yard, she has been humping her fellow criminals, too. Now don’t get me wrong: I appreciate and respect anybody’s orientation and wish for creatures of all persuasions only the happiest of times in the happiest of circumstances. But Jesus fucking goddam Christ, she is a fixed female; doesn’t that mean the surgeons removed all her hump potential? Or maybe humping is what fixed females do to pass the time while they’re in prison?

I’m realistic about this stuff, I guess. I can certainly understand – and indeed I promote – wild running-around behavior at the dog park. Dogs are supposed to run around at the dog park. But I can’t understand the skinny, hipster-douchebag dog owners at the dog park who are pacing with their cell phones, completely ignoring their dogs while talking extra loud about shit like “If we can nail the title sequence, the film will be perfect” or “Make sure the crew is fed. Those guys get pissed off if they’re not fed properly” or “I have way too many meetings next week to fit you in.” Or wait. I take that all back. I understand the douchebags: they want people to think they’re important. But girl-dog-to-girl-dog humping?

Looks like this is either a wonderful moment for me to explore the extent to which I really believe in social justice and equality for all or maybe it’s time for me to hire a dog shrink and figure out what switch got flipped the wrong way inside my dog. Or maybe the best course of action is to let dogs be dogs. Her name is Rocks, after all. What’s wrong with her getting hers off?

Meantime, I remain, as always, confused.