The Animals That Own Us.

I am sitting at my laptop with peanut M&M’s and a glass of Crown Royal on the rocks thinking of a new subject for this blog. All of a sudden Bella, Angie’s little Chupacabra, comes running into the room chasing a fly. Her stubby tail is at full mast and waging up and down vigorously (note: not side to side as a normal dog, Chupacabras wag up and down) as she chases this evil intruder around the room. This has starting me thinking about the relationships between the humans in our family and their pets.

Let’s take for example the relationship between Angie and her little alleged dog, Bella. This creature will not let Angie out of her sight. If Angie steps outside the little psycho jumps up on the back of the easy chair by the window and looks for her while loudly whining that her little world is coming to an end. Leave her alone for any span of time and she will eat the front door or window frames. When you take her out on the leash she walks at a 45-degree angle ahead of you with her hairless back hunched up and her nose to the ground. Neighborhood children run into their houses screaming in fright at the sight of her. This beast is indestructible. She sleeps right between me and Angie. We have a queen size bed and we would be considered king-size in most cultures. Somehow, she avoids being crushed or suffocated every night. Bella is also addicted to drugs. She freaks out when you get the laser light out (we call it her “crack”). Just mention the word and her little stubby tail pops straight up as if it just mainlined Viagra. She chases the thing in circles and across the room while screeching (that is her bark) loudly. She once got out front and started to run down the street, Angie yelled after her:

“Bella! Want some crack?”

When she saw the shocked look on the neighbors that were outside she yelled:

“Oh! I mean a snack! Want a Big Mac?”

Now, let’s consider my youngest daughter’s relationship with her dog, Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a female black lab. Obviously, this dog was deprived of oxygen at birth as whenever she comes over to our house she tap dances on the Pergo floor while wagging her tail furiously and trying to lick any exposed parts of your body. Ashley considers this dog as her child. If the dog passes gas she will ask us:

“Does that smell right to you?” All the while dialing up the vet so her digestive system can be checked out.

This dog’s vet recently bought a Mercedes. Brooklyn is her favorite patient. Let’s put it this way. If Ashley’s husband Gregg was walking Brooklyn on a frozen lake and they both fall in, Ashley will rescue the dog. You’re on your own, Gregg. When this dog dies I think we will have to put down Ashley so that she can be buried with her, just like the Pharaohs of Egypt did.

Our youngest son, Tristan, has a cat. This cat surely did drugs in his youth as this cat is not normal. Not that you can consider any cat normal. The cat loves Tristan and readily jumps into his lap when he gets home to rub on him and purr. Then he attacks him. I think the cat was watching a wildlife documentary while Tristan was at work and decided he needed to return to his people.

Marisa, our first child, has cats. As in plural. She will turn into the crazy cat lady when she gets older. Both cats hate each other but love her. This leads to some interesting interactions. Marisa’s husband, Daren, has a very large snake that lives in a case in the living room. The cats are very entertained when the snake gets fed a live rat. They put on silly hats and wear foam fingers and cheer on the snake. These cats will probably kill my daughter in her sleep one day and Daren will feed them to the snake.

Benjamin, our first son, and his family also have a snake, a rat and an insane purebred Husky named Hero. This dog literally ate all their furniture and carpet when he was young. Fortunately, he has calmed down and has turned into a great dog. Whenever he is at our family’s company office and I come in he greets me with a howl while coming up for a good back scratch. Benjamin has followed in the family tradition of having many pets around and has experienced the same thrills we did when he was growing up in our household of insanity with pets.

I, of course, have a couple of pets of my own. One is a very fat cat Ashley gave me named Felix. I call him Fat Boy. This cat loves coming into the house and rolling over on his back like a turtle and looking at me as if to say “Feed Me!” This cat can only groom the front half of his body as the rear section is too far to reach. Fat Boy, like all cats, loves to show off his butt hole to everyone. I think it is their way of showing that we are worthy to be around them. He reminds me of the poster I saw with a cat showing his pucker butt with the heading: “James, prepare my anus. I will be showing it at tonight’s gala”. Fat Boy is very lazy. I have literally watched him lay next to his food bowl and watch a backyard rat  come up and eat out of it. I think he was offended that his dinner guest did not put any food in his mouth while he was there.

I also have Buster. Tristan gave him to me. Buster is a Pitbull mix and is the happiest dog I have ever seen. When anyone comes over he wags his whole body at them vigorously while looking at them with love. He is, though, very protective of his back yard. Any humans are welcomed in with joy. Even the burglars and riff raff of the neighborhood. Buster will gladly show them where the gold is hidden. Not so with any unknown felines, racoons, opossums, squirrels and so on. Interestingly he treats Fat Boy and Bella like family. It appears Fat Boy has informed him on the proper treatment of the back-yard rats. He ignores them completely also. Recently, at 2am, Buster got into a tangle with the local oversized neighborhood Racoon named Rocky right under our open bedroom window. The fight sounded ferocious with loud snarling and growling from both participants. I turned on the back-yard lights just in time to see Rocky, minus a large amount of butt hair, scurrying over the fence to safety. Buster stood there with a mouthful of said butt hair with a look of his face that said, “That was fun! Can we do it again?” Two weeks later, while petting Buster, we found a lump on his fore leg that turned out to be one of Rocky’s fangs. Buster was the celebrity for the day at the vet after they removed it. I think our local racoon is irritated as not only is his butt cold but he is having issues chewing his stolen cat/dog food.