Howl

by Bark Editors

  In the interim, while this new legislation works its way through Congress, I would ask my fellow dog owners, pick up after your friggin’ dog!

  [Show a dog the time and he sniffs the leather watchband.—Dan Liebert]

  A Second Act

  [Alice Elliott Dark]

  A NOW INFAMOUS controversy arose last year in the usually warm and furry world of dog books when Raw Bones, the mutt who penned the best-selling memoir A Million Little Reeses, was exposed by the Internet media watch site The Steaming Pile as having fabricated many of his claims. A Million Little Reeses was already a best-seller before it was chosen by Orpah Doxie as a book club selection for her wildly successful show on the Animal Planet channel. As always, her imprimatur sent sales through the doghouse roof! It seemed every dog everywhere was reading the book. At dog runs only the puppies gamboled in the dust; any dog who’d learned to read could be seen stretched out against a fence, snout buried in the tome.

  The attention paid to this dramatic story of one dog’s descent into chocolate addiction and his self-styled recovery barked to thousands. There was new hope, especially for all those dogs who’d tried the methods offered by 12 Step programs, only to find themselves stymied when they simply couldn’t conceive of a higher power to whom they might turn over their runaway appetites. Raw Bones’s tale of old-fashioned determination appealed to those who were unable to find a place for themselves in the pack at meetings, or who were precluded from attending altogether, often by means of a rope tied to a tree. In a population not always aware of its options, Raw Bones had provided a fresh trail, and many rolled onto their backs with gratitude.

  Then the accusations of hyperbole, if not outright falsehood, hit the airwaves. Was it true that the book was a lie? At first many of Bones’s fans scratched the counterclaims as being jealousy. When a dog gets famous, particularly a mutt from nowhere, other dogs can get a little weird. Some come out from under the bed to hound him; some seek a butt-sniffing familiarity with him; and some criticize him for thinking he’s best in show. Soon, however, it was clear that Bones had indeed claimed to get chocolate poisoning many more times than he actually did. Nor had he ever reached the end of the line at the pound and had an X placed on his cage. In fact, he’d only spent one night at a kennel, and a rather plush one at that. The story unraveled, and Bones, accompanied by his editor, made a famous appearance on The Orpah Doxie Show to offer an apology to her and to his packs of readers. Book sales plummeted, and Bones disappeared from the public eye with his tail between his legs.

  We at Mea Culpa magazine followed his story closely, and recently sent a reporter to visit Bones. Our readers are always curious to see how such cataclysmic experiences and public apologies shake out after some time has passed. Bones was willing to talk to us and invited us to conduct the interview at his place. He lives in a gorgeous doghouse—he did make a lot of money—overlooking the ocean, in a location he asked us not to disclose. Suffice it to say he isn’t an American dog anymore—not that he’d be eligible to join any of our kennel clubs anyway. One look at him and you immediately see generations of unpedigreed sires and dams stretching back into his past.

  Not that that matters. The real question on our minds was: had Bones really changed? Read what he told us and decide for yourself.

  MEA CULPA: Thank you, Mr. Bones, for having us. Our readers are very eager to know how things are going for you today.

  BONES: Call me Raw.

  M.C.: Okay, then, Raw. I guess we may as well begin with the big question. Why did you write so many lies in your book and then claim it was a memoir?

  BONES: You know, you get tired of being at the bottom of the heap, kicked around by people who don’t even bother to try to understand you or your needs, signals, and vocalizations. You see all these dogs who aren’t nearly as intelligent as you leading these cushy lives, being carried around in expensive purses, going to restaurants and premieres and offices. Basically never being left alone. Over time seeing the unfairness that goes on all around you can create a low growl in your throat that just doesn’t go away. Even if you’re not a sight hound you can see that no one is going to give you a chance. You realize that if you’re going to have any luck in this world, you’ll have to make it yourself. That’s what I realized. So I wrote the book.

  M.C.: That explains your motivation, but not the lying.

  BONES: I didn’t lie! I embellished the truth to make my point stronger. Only the details are lies. I really was a chocolate addict.

  M.C.: Stop pacing back and forth. We’re not going to be able to communicate with you while you’re so agitated.

  BONES: I’m sorry. Without the chocolate, you see, I have nothing to calm me down.

  M.C.: Wow. That’s rough. But it’s so great you quit. Chocolate addiction is really dangerous for dogs. Did you know you could die from chocolate?

  BONES: Oh, sure, I knew. Addicts know these things. You have to. Heroin users know how much they can handle. Dogs know about chocolate. I had the stats firmly in my head. It’s all calibrated to weight. I weighed about 50 pounds when I was eating a lot of chocolate. At that weight, toxicity sets in at 200 pounds for white chocolate, which isn’t really chocolate, of course. For milk chocolate and semisweet, it takes about 2 pounds; for cocoa about two-thirds of a pound; and baking chocolate or dark chocolate, about 5 ounces. Dark chocolate was the most lethal and also, naturally, my favorite.

  M.C.: Five ounces is a lot, though. A candy bar is about 2 ounces, right?

  BONES: Right. But two candy bars in the course of a day is nothing. I could have eaten ten if I didn’t want to stay alive to eat more. I wasn’t completely self-destructive, you know. I mean, I never ran across a highway or anything like that. No death wish. I would push the envelope and eat the two candy bars. Yeah, that made me pretty sick, but I’d just go into the fireplace and eat a bunch of charcoal to set myself straight.

  M.C.: That seems like a plan that so easily could go wrong.

  BONES: Sometimes it did. I had two incidents in the book that showed how on the edge I was living. There was the time the fireplace got cleaned while I was outside in the yard; I didn’t know about it, so the next time I needed a hunk of charcoal it wasn’t there. I was a pretty sick puppy that night, let me tell you. And then there was the time I was at the house of a person who had a whole bag of Dove miniatures under her bed. I knew I shouldn’t eat them, that I probably wouldn’t be able to save myself if I did, but an addict is an addict and that kind of reasoning means about as much as most language does when your nose is two inches away from some other mutt’s fresh puddle of pee. I had to go to the emergency vet that time.

  M.C.: So that was true.

  BONES: The book was mostly true!

  M.C.: Stay calm. We’re not here to accuse you of anything.

  BONES: I know, I know. I’m still a bit skittish. You can’t imagine what it was like. I mean, I’ve been beaten before, but having the Bones name spoken in harsh, scolding tones over and over and over…it really hurt.

  M.C.: We can imagine. It’s too bad you couldn’t have published the book as a novel.

  BONES: I wanted to! My editor said it would sell better as a memoir.

  M.C.: Maybe. But it was such an exciting book. Your writing is really strong. We think it would have sold anyway.

  BONES: I can’t think about that. Alternative life trajectories are really hard for me to wrap my mind around. A few memories, an appreciation of the present moment, maybe a thought or two about dinner—that’s about it. I’m really a very simple guy.

  M.C.: Are you working on anything now?

  BONES: I’m thinking about it. I haven’t come up with the right idea yet. A Million Little Reeses was so me.

  M.C.: We can see where it’s a hard act to follow.

  BONES: It’s hard to learn a new trick.

  M.C.: You look very well. That’s good.

  BONES: I am well. I’ve lost ten pounds. One of the terrible side effects of a chocolate addicti
on is you get fat. I’ve dropped my chocolate weight and I’m working out a lot. I put in an electric fence and I’m running inside it, twenty, thirty times around the perimeter of the property in a day. I’m also doing stairs, and I’m eating grass once a week to cleanse my digestive tract.

  M.C.: That sounds like a rather abstemious regimen.

  BONES: I’m doing what needs to be done. Chocolate has a grip that’s hard to describe if it hasn’t had its choke collar around your ruff.

  M.C.: Just as long as you don’t push it too hard. People can become addicted to the cure too.

  BONES: Huh.

  M.C.: What?

  BONES: Oh, just something you said. Hey, did I say I ran around the property thirty times a day? I meant thirty times an hour. I do it five or six hours a day. And I’ve eaten most of the newly seeded grass in the neighborhood….

  [Every hair on a Pointer shouts “Here!” “Here!”— Dan Liebert]

  Littermate

  [Marga Gomez]

  MY NOSTRILS BURN when she licks them, but it’s either that or on my pursed lips. If I’m slow, my dog will slip me the tongue. It’s because she left her litter too young and wasn’t properly socialized. I’m not her only conquest. The singer Tennille (of Captain and Tennille) was so taken by the smooth coat, the brown spot on the butt, the floppy ears, and the naturally black-lined eyelids that she bent down on one knee to make friends. It was alarming. I wanted to shout, “Get up, Tennille! Move away from the dog,” but it was too late. Tabasco had already reared back on her Jack Russell haunches, aimed, and stolen another French kiss. I apologized profusely as we were led away from Tennille’s dressing room in the Tampa State Theater. She was starring in Victor/Victoria. I was working next door at the smaller Tampa State Theater Annex, which doubles as a storage unit most of the year. It wasn’t the greatest week of my career, but Tabasco liked the blistering sun and the fresh scent of armadillo outside our Holiday Inn.

  I’d like to say that Tabasco was named after the town in Mexico, but really she was named after the hot sauce my girlfriend sprinkled on her eggs at a roadside diner on the way to pick up our puppy. Getting a dog was her idea, and we were so in love that I would have agreed to any name she liked, from Cornflakes to Decaf. If we merely had a baby instead of a puppy we’d probably still be together. But I quickly fell under Tabasco’s spell. Instead of bringing my girlfriend flowers, I bought Tabasco a new squeaky toy every week.

  I got custody after the breakup even though the dog clearly favored my girlfriend. When dogs sense fear, they may attack, but when they sense codependency, they pick you last. It’s not the worship I expected from a dog. She’s stingy with the tail-wagging, and getting a kiss from her is like pulling fangs. So when she affectionately swabs my sinus cavities, I tell myself it’s genuine, not because she wants something. Then I fix her food—half a cup twice a day, presoaked in spring water and not one kibble or biscuit more.

  I wish I had somebody to control my meal portions. While my weight fluctuates, Tabasco’s compact form has never exceeded 13 pounds. She has the dimensions of a six-pack of beer, just small enough to slide under an airplane seat in her FAA-approved Sherpa travel bag. Some airlines offer two spaces per flight for pets small enough to remain confined under the seat for the duration of the trip—flight attendants go postal if they see a paw poking out from the blanket on your lap, trust me. No doubt they’re envious of the divorced, bankrupt former flight attendant who invented the Sherpa bag, became a millionaire overnight, and sent little dogs packing coast to coast. Tabasco and I have become versed in where to find trees and shrubs at JFK and LAX, and dog-friendly hotels in America. These seem to fall into two categories: the high-end establishment that caters to the Chihuahuas of the rich and famous or the going-out-of-business dump that will take anybody and their dog, cat, or ferret for an extra fifty bucks—in other words, the downtown Tampa hotel of our first road trip.

  It was a rough road to single parenthood. Tabasco sniffed our dreary room from wall to wall and opted to spend the first night brooding under one of the twin beds. I lay awake wondering what she was thinking or if she was thinking. Was she homesick? Did she miss my apartment or my ex-girlfriend’s apartment? Or was she pining for something primal that no human could provide?

  We got her from an old-fashioned country vet on a horse farm. He showed us her mom, long-legged and slim, hopping around the barn in a cast after being stomped by a horse. The dad dog was tied to a tree, all muscle and medium height like Tabasco. The vet claimed this dog enjoyed watching cartoons, which sounded cool but may have been another fabrication, like telling us Tabasco was eight weeks when she was only seven weeks. Finally, we were taken to the puppies. It’s impossible to feel like an adult at a time like that. I was clapping my hands and squealing like the six wild balls of fur at my feet. If I could design my afterlife, it would be populated with puppies, specifically Jack Russell puppies, no disrespect to the other breeds. The puppies would be born in heaven, not taken from earth, because that would be sad. Tabasco was the runt, getting tackled and sideswiped by the pack but persevering. We lifted her out of the melee and she wiggled joyfully in our arms. She was a happy puppy until we drove down the gravel road and past the wooden gate, at which point she let out a long mournful howl, followed by another. Aliens in a Volkswagen spacecraft were abducting her. Where were her brothers and sisters?

  I’m no pet psychic but I am an only child, and I recognized alienation when I saw it under that bed in Tampa. There was only one thing that could draw her out. Food. Food changed everything for us. Tabasco got a bonus meal in the middle of the night. She looked up at me with love while she chewed. Not love for her master, because I fawned too much to ever gain that distinction. It was love for a long-lost littermate, a partner in play, a source of body heat for cold nights, and a really big dog that had her back and would never go away. It was what we both were missing.

  My roll-aboard suitcase became her exclusive dog bed for the week. I pimped it out with a pillow and threw in my dirty socks for that lived-in aroma dogs crave. I moved the easy chair and ottoman to the window, giving her a two-hop viewing stand of the occasional bird flying by. We enjoyed many walks along the nearby creek and an up-close armadillo encounter that stirred her killer instinct and made her tail quiver with excitement. But for Tabasco, nothing compared to kissing Tennille in that special way reserved for the Captain. It was a bold move from a creature of habit turned adventure seeker. Tampa was our territory. Now we roam new lands as a small but fierce pack of two, masters of our destiny. She anticipates each voyage before I start packing. She sits by the suitcases before the airport shuttle arrives. Howling is in the past. All we hear is the call of Tennille.

  I will, I will, I will, I will

  Be there to share forever

  Love will keep us together

  [In antique photos, only the dogs still seem alive.—Dan Liebert]

  Dog Mad

  [Lee Harrington]

  WELL, IT HAS finally happened, as I feared it would. I have officially become a Crazy Dog Lady. How can I say for sure? Well, just last weekend, at the local dog run, I was chatting with my fellow dog parents about the usual subjects—anal sacs, diarrhea, undescended testicles, and the like. And I thought it perfectly fine—even appropriate—to announce that my dog’s breath had begun to smell like urine. “I follow that Berkeley-water-conservation rule, to, you know, not flush every time, unless it’s necessary, and I forgot to put down the lid. With Ted gone, there’s no one to crab at me about putting it down. So when my dog came up to give me a kiss, there was this awful smell, and I knew what he had done. I knew he had drunk—”

  Slowly, my fellow dog parents backed away.

  Even the man who was just, not minutes before, describing, in excruciating detail, the contents of his Terrier’s most recent Riverside Park vomit (“Cigarette butts! Part of a Cuban sandwich! Even some partially digested human feces”); even he put his dog’s leash on and hurried off, stiffly, li
ke Charlie Chaplin, as if I were a disease he might catch.

  I was left standing alone, in a cloud of dust, wondering how it had happened. And so quickly! I was only in my third decade, and had had my dog only four years. I didn’t even get a chance to tell them that the urine drinking was a onetime incident. That I had learned my lesson and now flushed. But it was too late. I had been pegged.

  Meanwhile, far, far away, from across the run, I heard someone bring up the subject of bull pizzles. And I thought: What separates me from them? Where does one draw the line between Normal, Paranormal, and Crazy Dog Person?

  I mean, before I got a dog, I had a definitive, admirable style. I knew how to pair vintage sweaters with the latest Tuleh sundress. I wore platforms from the seventies a year before they came back into style. And the extra-long-hem-over-stiletto-shoes-and-jeans trend? That was me who started it. The tank tops under mesh? Me again. A real downtown chick.

  But now look at me. Open my closet and you’ll find all the feather boas and leather skirts pushed neglectfully to the far reaches. And front and center are mom jeans. With pleats. To accommodate all the liver treats and poopie bags in my pockets. And then there are T-shirts (which say things like LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG or, of course, DOG IS MY CO-PILOT) covered with paw prints and drool. I never bother to wash these T-shirts, because why bother? There’s a Sisyphean quality to having a dog that says, for every hair you brush off your black velveteen jacket, twenty more will appear. And speaking of hair, mine, which I never have time to style anymore, is always pulled back in a hurried “the dog has to go to the bathroom” ponytail, and I barely bother to color it any more (or “enhance” it, as we say here in New York), because who sees me but the dog? And a bunch of other Crazy Dog People?