Finally the antibiotics took effect. John started to get better. First he started breathing on his own. Then he ate something. Altogether it was six weeks that John was in the hospital.
I took the day off from work when John was ready to come home. I helped him up the stairs. I laid down next to him, and we just lay there all afternoon.
John started getting better right away. I told him how Cab and I had really bonded.
I’d read all the dog stories so I knew what was supposed to happen next. After a year of peeing on my pillow, Cab was going to realize that I had stuck with him through John’s illness. He would see that I’m dependable and loyal, fidelis eternus, just like he is; he would come to love me and never pee on my pillow again.
John spent another week in bed, getting better each day. Pretty soon he was up and around. And things started getting back to normal. Then one night the two of us were in bed again, with Cab on the floor.
The next day John went to work. When he came home, he was really tired, so the two of us went up to his bed. We lay down. I didn’t even check the pillow, because I knew Cab was not going to pee there anymore. But my head touched something cold, and with my hand I felt the wetness.
I could not believe after all we’d been through that Cab would pull that on me. I said to John, “I have read a lot about Dachshunds. I know Dachshunds are stubborn. I know Dachshunds are hard to train. I know Dachshunds are very sensitive to events. I know Dachshunds are scent hounds and care a lot about smells. I practically have a Ph. D. in Dachshunds. But I can’t understand this.”
I was so angry that I felt like I was going to kill Cab. I hopped up and started screaming at him. I told him what a rotten, filthy dog he was, how he was a bad friend and couldn’t be trusted, and how I was going to spend the rest of my days lobbying John to get rid of him. I told him I hoped he died of a terrible, mutilating illness.
John said that I had better stop or he was going to have a relapse.
I had to get out of there. I went downstairs, and Alvin followed me. He was really worried. I didn’t know what I was doing—I was just fueled by anger.
I opened the garage door, and there it was, Cab’s magnificent bed, that bed he was so goddamn proud of and always curled up in. I went over—and before I even know what I wanted to do, I was peeing in it.
I peed all over it. The more I peed, the happier I felt.
I looked back to the kitchen, and there were Alvin and Cab, standing there. Alvin has this look like, “Uh-oh, ” like he was the one who had done something wrong.
And Cab just looked amazed, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I zipped up, and Cab came over and sniffed his bed. He looked up at me. He sniffed his bed again. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t believe I had just urinated all over his bed.
I said, “See how much you like it.” Because I knew the last thing a dog wanted was a dirty bed.
I wasn’t mad any more. I should say that I wasn’t pissed off any more. I was all pissed out. I went back upstairs, where John was changing the sheets. I told him what I had done. He laughed, but I was sure he thought I was nuts. We went to bed.
The next morning, I told Cab, “Don’t you ever piss in my bed again. This is war. You piss in mine, I’ll piss in yours.” Cab listened.
We came home that night, and the bed was clean. I slept in it, then came back the next night—still clean. John and I slept in the bed all week, and nothing happened.
Not only that, when Cab looked at me, the look on his face was different. He used to look at me with contempt. Finally I could swear the look on his face was respect.
That was the golden key. That turned the corner.
I’m not recommending this as a dog-training exercise. I don’t claim to know anything about housebreaking dogs. But on the other hand, has anyone actually tried this? Are there any statistics on it? Has it been studied? Who knows, I may have discovered a foolproof way to change your dog’s behavior. I think experts should get busy and document it.
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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
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EDWARD ALBEE is a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, author of The Zoo Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Three Tall Women, among many others. He lives in New York City and Montauk, Long Island.
RANDY ALLGAIER is a San Franciscan living with AIDS who has a long history in AIDS advocacy and gay activism. He served on numerous boards, committees and councils, chairing many of them. His love of animals and gay activism combined when he served as president of the Board of Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS).
KEVIN ANDERSEN is a financial officer for an international health-care corporation based in Detroit. He now lives in London.
VICTOR J. BANIS is a pioneer in writing about the lives of gay men and lesbians. He has published many books, most recently a reissue of his classic Tales from C.A.M.P., three spy spoof novels featuring agent Jackie Holmes and his adventures with Sophie, his saber-toothed white poodle. Banis lives in West Virginia.
STEVE BERMAN writes speculative queer fiction. He has sold nearly seventy short stories and articles, and his young adult novel, Vintage: A Ghost Story, was published by the Haworth Press.
CHARLES BUSCH is the author of the award-winning Broadway play, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, and author and star of such plays as The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset, and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, which ran for five years Off-Broadway. He wrote and starred in the film versions of Psycho Beach Party and Die Mommie Die, for which he won Best Performance Award at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, Mr. Busch received a special Drama Desk Award for career achievement as both performer and playwright.
HAL CAMPBELL lives in the wine-making region of Sonoma County in a home he shares with his newest rescued Beagles, Penny and Millie. He is also the book critic for We the People, the LGBT newspaper in northern California. He is currently at work on his first novel.
JONATHAN CAOUETTE is a director, writer, editor, and actor. His film Tarnation was an official selection of the Cannes, New York, Sundance and Toronto film festivals and won Best Documentary from the National Society of Film Critics. He lives in New York City with his partner, David Sanin Paz.
J. R. G. DEMARCO lives and writes in Philadelphia and Montréal. Currently a columnist for X-Factor magazine, he has also been a columnist for The Advocate, In Touch, and Gaysweek. His essays have been published in anthologies including Gay Life, Hey, Paisan!, We Are Everywhere, BlackMen WhiteMen, and Men’s Lives.
DONALD L. HARDY is a cube wrangler in Silicon Valley by day, actor, writer, and rogue editor by night. His first novel is currently in the editing phase. He lives on his sailboat in Alameda, on San Francisco Bay.
STEPHEN KWIELCHEK was a paralegal in Washington, D. C. He died of AIDS.
ALISTAIR McCARTNEY was born in 1971 in Australia. His writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Fence, The James White Review, FreshMen: New Gay Fiction, Aroused, and Wonderlands: Good Gay Travel Writing. “On the Impossibility of Existing Without Dogs” is excerpted from his first book, The End of the World Book, published by the University of Wisconsin Press. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner, Tim Miller.
BRIAN McCORMICK is the arts editor of Gay City News and managing director of nicholasleichterdance, and teaches media studies at the New School in New York City.
RANDALL McCORMICK is Senior Systems Manager for a printing company in Atlanta. He and his Boxer, Samson, spend their free time outdoors, hiking, camping, and swimming, and collecting antiques. He is a member of the Human Rights Campaign.
DAVID MIZEJEWSKI is manager of the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Wildlife Habitat program, host of Backyard Habitat on Animal Planet, and author of Attracting Birds, Butterflies and Other Backyard Wildlife.
JACK MORTON is a four-time Emmy Award–winning stylist. He served as the official stylist for ABC dur
ing the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and is the owner of Indulgence Salon, in Atlanta, and WrApsody in Blue, in Blue Ridge, Georgia.
RON NYSWANER is the screenwriter of The Painted Veil, Philadelphia, Mrs. Soffel, and many other films. His memoir, Dark Days, Blue Nights, was published by Alyson Books in 2004.
G. RUSSELL OVERTON is a historical researcher for a consulting firm in Lansing, Michigan. He has written both fiction and nonfiction and has two novels planned for publication.
MATTHEW PHILLIPS works in a forty-year-old family construction business, and owns and operates a chain of retail stores that include car washes and oil-change centers in Westchester, New York. He lives in New York City with two Brussels Griffons and his partner of ten years, Saul Sayeh.
JAY QUINN is the author of the novel The Good Neighbor, published by Alyson Books, as well as the novels Metes and Bounds and Back Where He Started, in addition to works of nonfiction. He lives Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his partner and their dogs, Patsy and Hailey.
LEV RAPHAEL escaped university teaching in 1988 after thirteen years to write full-time. Since then, he has published seventeen books in a variety of genres. Winner of a Lambda Book Award among other prizes, he has been featured in three documentaries, and his books have been published in almost a dozen languages. His most recent books are Secret Anniversaries of the Heart (stories) and Writing a Jewish Life (memoir). He married his partner in Canada on their twenty-first anniversary. They live in mid-Michigan with two Westies, Kobi and his younger cousinYuri.
Jeffrey Ricker’s writing has appeared in the anthologies Paws and Reflect and Fool for Love: New Gay Fiction, and the forthcoming Blood Sacraments. Hi first novel, Detours, is forthcoming from Bold Strokes Books. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, he lives in St. Louis with his partner, two dogs, and two cats. Follow his blog at jeffreyricker.wordpress.com.
JUSTIN RUDD is the founder of Haute Dog, which organizes Bulldog Beauty Contest, Howl’oween Parade, Blessing of the Animals, Easter Parade, and other dog-related community events in Long Beach, California, where he lives with his Bulldog, Rosie.
MICHAEL WALLERSTEIN is a senior sales analyst for Tyco Healthcare International in St. Louis. He earned his B. S. in business at Indiana University—Bloomington and his M. B. A. from Washington University in St. Louis. He lives with his partner, Jeffrey Ricker, their three cats, and two dogs.
ANDY ZEFFER is the author of the novel Going Down in La-La Land, a racy romp through the dark and funny sides of Hollywood. He has written for magazines and newspapers such as the Provincetown Banner, New York Blade, Washington Blade, Southern Voice, and The Express.
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ABOUT THE EDITORS
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Neil Plakcy is the author of five mystery novels and three M/M romances, as well as editor of several anthologies.
Mystery novels include the Mahu series, about Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa'aka: Mahu (Haworth Press 2005, Alyson Books 2009); Mahu Surfer (Alyson, 2007); Mahu Fire (Alyson, 2008); and Mahu Vice (Alyson, 2009); also the golden retriever mystery In Dog We Trust (in e-book format from Amazon.com).
Romance novels: GayLife.com (MLR Press, 2009) and the Aidan and Liam bodyguard adventure series, Three Wrong Turns in the Desert (Loose Id, 2009) and Dancing with the Tide (Loose Id, 2010).
Plakcy is an assistant professor of English at Broward College’s South Campus in Pembroke Pines, FL and a freelance writer and web developer. He has published a wide range of fiction and nonfiction in mainstream and gay and lesbian publications, both in print and online.
His short fiction has appeared in many publications, including Blithe House Quarterly and In The Family, and he won first prize for the best South Florida story in a contest for South Florida magazine. His story "At The Diner" is available in e-format from Untreed Reads.
Sharon Sakson is a writer, journalist, television producer, breeder and dog show judge. She is a columnist for Dog News magazine. Her new book is Paws & Effect: The Healing Power of Dogs, a look into the many ways canines come to the rescue of their human friends. Another book, Paws to Protect, is about the bravery and intuition of the nation’s military, police, customs, and arson dogs.
She is a freelance writer/producer of television programs in New York and has been a Field Producer for NBC Sports, WNBC, ABC National News. She produced programs for Court TV, Food TV and local television stations in Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco. She is the author of two Bantam travel guides, and writer of over 100 articles. She was an editor at The Wall Street Journal Newswires. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Writing degree from the New School for Social Research.
She is a breeder of champion Whippets and Brussels Griffons under her “Parisfield” kennel prefix. She is an accredited American Kennel Club dog show judge, judging most of the Hound Group and some Working breeds. She has judged internationally in Canada, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Finland and Taiwan.
Paws and Reflect_Exploring the Bond Between Gay Men and Their Dogs Page 24