Dog? Wuzzat?
Hi, human...
Originally uploaded by Vettha. The last time I can remember living with a dog I was about 12. The people next door had a litter of puppies and let me pick one, but a few days later they decided I'd picked the best one and took him back...
I can't remember his name and I wonder if I should feel sad about that...
Before him I had Rags.
Rags was the only dog who was 1. mine, for a while at least, and 2. I can remember living in a house with for any amount of time...
.... I keep rechecking my memory because surely that's wrong? Surely there have been dogs?
But no... My mother's always been allergic to most animals, and my father and his family were always staunch Cat People. I remember the general shock when Uncle Jim went against tradition and got Beatrice.
Bea was awesome... she was this little black scottish thingie... like the one in Lady & the Tramp.... there's a name for it.
Whatever, she was cool.
Mostly I remember Rags as being really dumb... And I remember being deeply invested in his well-being. One of our roommates at the time built him this makeshift dog house up against the sliding glass door with its own heat lamp inside so that I could see that he was ok even when he couldn't be in the house. I have pictures of us at the lake together and in them I'm spraying him with a water bottle to keep him from getting overheated.
Now, oddly, my father and stepmom have a dog and I'm sharing a house with him.
Mickey is sweet-natured, and impressively well... trained? Behaved? I dunno, he listens when I tell him to please leave my cat's room and for the most part, actually, doesn't try to come back here.
I feel most of the time like he must think I'm a broken two-legged... Because I'm sure there are responses he's used to getting from us humans that he's just not getting from me. I pat him and throw his toys for him and say hello, but I am very conscious of feeling like I'm trying to do outreach with some strange alien race...
Kinda cool alien, but still utterly foreign to me.