They say – the humans do – that every dog has his day.
Where is my day? Or maybe my hour. How about a few measly seconds? I’m waiting.
My dog days began at the adoption.
I was a valuable dog. A perfect mix of Aussie Shepherd and Standard Poodle. Pretty and smart. Then my breeders went Costco on me and put me on sale so they could “move the merchandise.” Will I be part of a family-pak? Fourteen puppies squirming inside plastic wrap with a 4-ton bag of sequoia-sized cheeses thrown in?
My soon-to-be owners entered the “store”. The sale price on my head was $950.00. The male was flummoxed. He kept hmmm-ing. I thought the kennel smell was getting to him but apparently he was thinking.
He pointed out that $950.00 is so close to the price point of a…Macbook Air. Should he get something that increases his productivity by 1000%, he wondered, or something that eats shoes? Could this be Gandhi reincarnated, I thought?
The Macbook Air has many benefits, he informed everyone. Update its operating system and it gets smarter.
To contrast that, he brought up a touchy subject for me. When he got on his hands and knees to test me as a playmate, he accused me of wanting to start a family with him. Listen. I am a prisoner to some of my ancestral urges just like humans are.
The female, the smarter of the two, made the decision, wrote the cheque and off we were.
Then came my name. Newman. Obviously. We have ourselves here a slender, sophisticated and playful puppy so let’s name him after an abrasive, competitive and pudgy mailman.
The drive home afforded me the opportunity to have some fun with the malevolent male. Luck had it that the breeder fed me before we left. Do you know what bumpy car rides can do to volatile puppy tummies? Put my dinner all over the male’s jeans, is what. My sad and apologetic expression, mastered at such a young age, made punishing me impossible.
My male owner, Ralph (calls himself Alpha Ralph), thinks he’s top dog, and top human. He introduces me to friends as the “son” he never had. This way he can brag that it’s mostly his DNA in me. Look at the cute face, he says. Pay attention to the intelligent expression, denoting a high IQ. All true, of course, but all from his lineage.
Oh sure, he does acknowledge at least some genetic participation from the female. My tendency to growl at strangers and my love of shoes.
Fast forward a year. Alpha Ralph keeps complaining that I have to poop everyday. As far as I know he does too. And I’m not the one who encourages him to collect the stuff in bags.
One snowy day in December he sat me down and asked me, straight face and all, to stop pooping in the backyard for three short months. January to March. He’ll keep feeding me but I need to put a plug in it.
He carefully explained the urgency of the situation. Winter conditions interfere with his delicate metabolism and so he can’t get out to walk me or pick up poop as much as he’d like to. “Who the hell wants to freeze their ass off”, is how he put it. He drew a diagram for me. As I poop throughout the winter, it gets “frozen in time” in successive layers of ice and snow.
In Spring, he’s faced with cleaning up a mile high archaeological site of poop. Out come the tools. Chip, chip – this poop froze on Jan 3rd, he would note. Chip, chip – here’s a large one from Feb 18th.
I am not an archaeologist, he reminded me.
I frantically let him know I get it. Then I hatched a plan. With careful attention (and my high I.Q.) I formed one of my poops into the distinct shape of an arrowhead.
His mouth hung open for days when he found it. Is Newman evolving, he kept asking himself? Is it only a matter of time before he reaches the Bronze age? “Pretty soon I’ll be the one drinking from the toilet”, I heard him say. “Who is the master here?”, he cried.
He is still crying and I'm still pooping.
So you see, my glory days haven't arrived yet. But I keep things in perspective. At least my name isn’t Mulva.
