Dead Pets

I was always a dog lover. Nowadays, I don't consider myself a true dog lover because I am allergic to pretty much anything with hair - even myself! I actually get a rash everywhere I have fur or hair, but that's just disgusting and I won't burden/disgust you with any further knowledge of that.

Back to my childhood traumas.
I had my first dog when I was too young to remember. I know I was supposedly a genius but I do forget things...or maybe I wasn't a genius. I don't recall.
So, I had this dog, Angus, which my dad murdered when I was about four. He didn't mean it, but it was a murder just the same, I say. Poor Angus. He was a nice dog. He's buried in my parents' backyard along with a bunch of other dead pets. After my dad backed his truck up (and over) Angus, we got these two crazy-ass poodles someone in my family decided to name Lola & Peaches. I think
the initial names were Salt & Pepper and then someone decided that we couldn't tell which one was Salt and which was Pepper so it would be easier to call them names that are less "connected". We couldn't tell Lola from Peaches either but at least it didn't feel like it mattered. Anyway both dogs were extemely stupid and had extreme intestinal issues which casued them to skate across the floors of our house, leaving very interesting (and smelly!) skid marks everywhere. After a couple of days of that fun, my dad locked L&P in the basement where they barked for about 48 hours before they were sold to a farmer in New Jersey. My father told the poor farmer that the dogs were very well "housebroken". What he meant by that was that they nearly broke up the house with their shitnanigans but the lie served it's real purpose and the guy took them. I heard he was quite upset later on but my dad never left a phone number so he was stuck with them until he decided to shoot them or give them away. I'm guessing L&P might have found doggy heaven shortly after they got to the farm though.
A few months after the last remnants of dog smell had evaporated, my brother Aldo brought home "Cheeks" from some frankenbreeders on his paper-route. They had decided to mix a Shih-Tzu and a Minature Pinscher to create a new "master breed" of toy dog. Instead they got these really weird-looking puppies that looked something like Salacious Crumb from 'The Return of the Jedi'. Cheeks, who turned out to be a kind of genius dog, was also quite the neighborhood slut. The name fit well. Despite this, my grandmother, who lived with us at the time and who was a very proper Irish/English woman, refused to accept that name. She just completely ignored it when we presented Cheeks to her and looked at the dog and said, "oh, how sweet. Her name is Princess! Princess Alice Victoria!"
Can you believe that sit?
She just up and renamed the dog!
Not only that but she renamed the dog the gayest, most retarded name anyone could ever think up. We ALL completely rejected the name and decided that it was best not to upset Granny by telling her this. So, we just let her call Cheeks that stupid name while we went on calling her Cheeks. I think it was confusing for the dog and it may have created a kind of "dual identity" that fostered this whole whore/madonna complex that she apparently had.
She played the role of the innocent pretty well until one day I came home from school and my mother started screaming at me for spilling milk all over the floor.
I had been yelled at the day before for the same thing and, since I have memmory issues, I took the heat for it thinking I was just going insane. (I had that feeling a lot as a child.)
But this time, I was not taking it. "I just walked in the door!" When did I have time to spill milk, Ma!"
Well, I had seen Cheeks getting busy with a local stray dog out by the johnny pump about three weeks before. That coupled with the fact that she's suddenly gained a belly that was nearly dragging on the floor let me to the conclusion that Cheeks was pregnant.
"I told you I saw her with that white dog a few weeks ago, Ma! She's a slut and she's pregnant with his bastard puppies!"
(Well, as you might have guessed, I couldn't have gotten away with the word bastard, so I think I said "bastage", which is from 'Johnny Dangerously', a film which facilitated my need to fake-curse for many a year.)
Mom refused to believe this up until the minute Cheeks gave birth. Cheeks had completely torn up the rug in the den building a "nest" for her birthing and Ma still didn't get it.
"That dog's gone nuts!", she said.
Like her owner.
Anyway, the dog popped three puppies - two live and one deadish on April 29th and one runt on April 30th. The runt was rejected by the bitch and so I had to buy doggy formula and feed him myself. We developed a bond and I kept him telling my parents that I would give up "Hogan" over my dead body and that if they wanted to be responsible for the death of their child they could get rid of the dog.
Cheeks was pissed. There was not room enough in our 15-room house for two dogs. She spent the next six months trying to abandon Hogan. She'd sneak out of the house with him and disappear to God-knows-where and then come back in the middle of the night with a gaggle of boy-mutts and no Hogan in sight. I usually went out to find him in some neighbors garden whining because he couldn't figure out how to get out from behind the fence.
Poor Hogan. He didn't have Cheeks' smarts.
While she was basically able to communicate with snarls, sneezes and looks, Hogan just romped around, getting hit by the occasional car, peeling dead pigeons off the street and hoarding cat poo. Oh, how he loved cat poo! When he found it he'd get so excited that he'd just roll around in it. He didn't seem to mind that it stuck to his fur and made him smell a little worse than usual. He just seemed so happy when he found some. It was like he was in love with cat shit.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could all be so happy with the simple things in life?
Imagine you're feeling sad and lonely. You have your morning coffee which leads to your late-morning bowel movement and just before you're about to flush...bliss!