So polio and small pox and rabies are supposedly practically non-existent in our age of penicillin and whatnot. But if FDR were to rise from his grave, you wouldn’t want him coughing in your face, never mind the fact there’s a dead president around. And if a poor Russian immigrant with suspicious spots were to sit next to you on the bus, germ warfare is the first thing running through your head, even though the Cold War is over. So when a dog bit me, who could possibly blame me for freaking out? All these diseases, genetic, viral, bacterial, fairytale, they still exist somewhere on the planet, no matter what other people from WHO tell you. And it is my belief that they all exist in the filthy mouths of dogs.
Take my street for example: dogs of all shapes and sizes in all the gardens and on every sidewalk, doing their business, their owner thinking that if they fertilize it enough, the pavement just might bare fruit one day. I see dogs of all the popular sorts: Golden Retrievers and Lab puppies and crime-fighting Nazi Shepherds and sanctified Bernards with little barrels attached to their collar, in case there’s an avalanche in the suburbs of this the Capital City. And then there are the old women dogs. The small, fluffy, cute little dusters with legs. And lets not forget the dangerous hounds. The big Boxer and Doberman and Bulldog and Pitbull and Cerberus. Because in a neighborhood built in the 1950s and still mostly inhabited by the original owners, you really need these Baskervillians to guard you from uncanny old ladies and their grandchildren.
But not everyone has a dog. Some people have two. This one guy, died a few years back, used to live a few houses upstreet from us, he had four four-legged best friends. That’s sixteen legs in the house that don’t do any valuable, money-earning legwork.
My house, or rather,, ma parent’s house, or even my grandma’s house, come to think of it, well our house is one of the maybe five or six properties on the long street that are K-9-less. And I dare say it always will be that way, because our failure to succumb to the general feeling of fondness towards dogs is genetic.
In reality, there are no cat people and dog people. There are just dog people and normal people. Feel free to leave the cats out of the equation, because what are cats if not just smaller dogs that don’t want to be in a committed relationship? You have to wash them, feed them, love them, and clean up after them the same way you do with dogs, only cats don’t give a rat’s ass about you and leave whenever they want wherever they want. So my point is, my family’s not a bunch of cat people. We’re a bunch of normal people. (
Pretentious assholes might not be the correct term, but it sure as hell sounds right. Your typical dog owner will do one of three things: talk about their pet all the time, make you pet their pet even if you don’t want to, and stick it in your face that they are part of a special community. Dog owners are not regular people. Despite popular belief, they might not even be people at all. Maybe some kind of missing link between man and dog. Werewolf is what I think it’s called.
A typical dog owner, member of this just slightly obnoxious and annoying community, is completely blind to the fact that not everyone likes dogs. They think you don’t mind when it sniffs around your ass and licks your fingers and jumps on you and tears your wind pipe out. How could you mind? It’s so adorable and cute and here doggy, good doggy. A person with a dog will typically socialize with another person with a dog very easily. You know, because they “get it” and you don’t. They have a dog for barking out loud, and the dogless just have no idea.
When I was out with a bunch of friends once, one of them brought her adorable little bitch, and it was just impossible to talk her (the person), because any kind of conversation would be 25% you talking, 25% you waiting for an answer while she was watching her dog 25% her saying “yes, you’re a good doggy” instead of talking to you, and then finally the 25% of distracted answers would come. And what’s even worse than your friend with the dog is your other friends interacting with the dog. It’s incredible how people known to use harsh language and drugs turn into people saying “Here boy!” to a female animal and throwing sticks instead of throwing parties.
Yes, I would say I’m oppressed. I probably wouldn’t complain about it to a black person or a Jew, but still I think I’m being discriminated against. Walking home means watching big barking beasts running towards me and just barely being stopped by the fences holding them in. Beware of dog signs were the first thing I learned to read and it will be the last thing I’ll read as well. And the best part is the dog huggers actually think they are the minority that should complain about discrimination. They complain about having to put up those beware of dog signs and buying leashes and vaccinating their dogs. Because to them, Planet of the Dogs would be the ideal world. A place where everyone gets to step in dog shit and get licked and barked at and bitten and be happy about it. They think it’s normal to walk behind their pets with plastic bags, hunting for their turds. They think it’s OK to feed dog chow to animals that once used to be scavengers and predators and can very easily be those things again.
But I wouldn’t want to go on a rant here, so let me get back to those diseases. Why did I mention those? Because every night, and especially during the warm months (lately I noticed those are all year round), I am forced to listen to the insufferable howling of these domesticated beasts. All around me, on my street and the parallel streets and the perpendicular streets, from every direction, dogs yell and scream and bitch and moan all night. And it’s not the full Moon, and they are not being tortured and they are not lonely, so I figure the only reason this cacophony of howls is on air all night every night is because all those dogs are sick. Flees, worms, rabies, polio… heck, even TBC and the plague and Tourette syndrome and Guillain-Barré and cancer, these dogs must have it all, or if you don’t think so, then tell me why won’t they shut up and let me sleep?
1 comment:
I'll bet you didn't even shed a tear
When Tommy Kirk shot Old Yeller.
I sympathize with the narrator's loss of shuteye.
In most so-called civilized countries
Sleep deprivation is used as torture.
And who hasn't wanted, on occasion,
To go adolescent Dexter on a dog,
Or grown-up Dexter on a dog owner.
But no such thing as cat people? Really!
Try telling that to Nastassja Kinsky.
And cats don't need baths. They clean themselves.
Due to the time they spend attending to them,
Their tail ends are particulary clean.
And at least cat people don't dress their pets.
A friend of mine shops for dogs by color,
But I have never paid a cent for a cat.
Cats have a way of finding me.
I'm not that fond of either dogs or people,
And actually preferred feline company
Until I attempted to move my cat cross country.
When I tried to stuff him in his carrier,
And he clawed one of my shoulders to shreds
I truly started having second thoughts.
Thank God my "smaller dog" has had his shots.
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