The wonder of pets…

I’ve always had pets in my life and really can’t imagine going for too long without one. I guess if I tried, I could break up the significant periods in my life according to what pets were in the house. First, it was an old mutt named Barkis that used to guard my crib. I don’t remember much about him except that he didn’t ever want to play water ski in the kitchen when I was 3 and had on my socks. I think it had to do with my use of his tail as the tow line. He was followed immediately by a black and white gerbil named Lansing, who wasn’t the friendliest little bugger on the planet, but I have a feeling that I wasn’t the gentlest owner at 9 years old. The little “travel ball” that resembled a bowling ball was just a little too tempting to roll down the hallway at times… I know now that it was wrong, but the mischevious little devil that took over my motor functions at times didn’t care.

After Lansing was with us for about a year, we added Dodger (not named after the baseball team) – a buff cocker spaniel that was bred for “temperment.” (Back to the name for a sec, Mama and Papa M are huge English literature buffs, especially Charles Dickens, so all the dogs were named after Dickens characters. Barkis (David Copperfield) and Dodger (Oliver Twist) were the first two.) But seriously, I’d be hard-pressed to find a better dog. He loved playing hide-and-go-seek in the yard behind the azaleas. We’d also play chariot down the street with me holding onto his leash and sitting on my skateboard. But after about 7 years, Dodger ran into some health problems and passed on. I still remember the phone call from the vet in the middle of the night that basically told us it was time to put him down.

Mainly at my urging, he was succeeded almost immediately by Micawber (David Copperfield). Now, I deserve at least part of the blame for the next few years because Micawber was a puppy mill dog (ended up getting quoted in Teen magazine for that one). We really should’ve known better, but he was so damn cute. Thinking that there was some “American Gothic” family selling off the family dog’s litter, we headed out into the country (eastern pennsylvania) in response to an ad in the paper for chocolate cocker spaniels (harder to find than buff/blond cockers). And there was Micawber, the 6-pound bruiser of the litter… and I just had to have him. Well, three days after we took him home, Micawber showed signs of Parvo (if you don’t know what it is, it basically destroys a dog’s digestive system). Micawber went from 6 pounds to 3 pounds in the first week that we had him (half of which was spent in the emergency veterinary hospital. But he came back, and the sucker had a huge appetite for the rest of his life.

One other not-so-nice trait, which Micawber picked up from the puppy mill that (we can only guess) was the result of inbreeding in an attempt to retain the chocolate coat of hair, was a slightly mis-wired brain. He was an awesome dog, 99 percent of the time… but every now and then, he’d just … well, snap. One day (summer of 1996), I was watching an Agassi/Sampras match on TV (I think it was Wimbledon), and Micawber was sitting on my lap for some much-needed petting. I don’t remember what happened during the match, but at one point, I laughed. And I must’ve pulled back my upper lip or something, which might’ve seemed like baring my teeth (yes, I realize there’s a lot of must/might/could-have-been in this story.) Anyway, Micawber didn’t like that. Whether he felt threatened or not, he let me know of his displeasure by sinking his teeth into my upper lip. The next thing I remember, he’s on the ground giving me an “oh crap, what did I just do” look, which I’m sure complemented my “wtf just happened” look quite well. At any rate, five stitches and an inflated lip later, Micawber and I made up. There were a few more incidents of varying degrees over the next several years, but all in all, he really was a pretty good dog, although by the looks of this post, I’ve painted him in a slightly different light.

So now that I was out of the house (post-college), there were two households that needed pets. I continued my theme of dogs named after cities with Memphis, a mostly hairless and continuously stinky version of a Boston Terrier… she’s got more character than a Disney movie though, I’ll give her that.

And my parents continued their theme of Dickens characters with (Nicholas) Nickleby and (Jacob) Marley. And they’re really the reason for this post… because I’ve realized that, whether I knew it or not, although my parents’ only (human) child left the house, I was replaced and have two rather furry brothers now. And this year, they sent me some birthday wishes.

So what about you? Is your life as dependent on the presence of furry creatures as mine is? As further proof that our lives are driven by pets, Kim and I have already agreed that when Lena turns 5, she can have a dog. I’m thinking of a lab or something bigger (Bernese Mountain Dog would be pretty sweet, but our house would resemble an unswept barbershop I fear)… but yeah, the little one gets to choose. Please no poodles… please no poodles.