Pet Monologues

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to take my ex-roommate’s cat to the vet. I guess he’s my cat now. His name is Max and he’s a very skinny orange tabby cat. He came complete with a fifteen second memory span and he has only one facial expression, which is blank. I often wonder if he was somebody’s genetic cloning experiment. That or if he is suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. He’s just a living cat with barely a hint of character.

I’m trying to give him a personality but it’s difficult. I wonder if my techniques are working. The first technique is to hold him tightly against my chest and speak nonsense to him, kiss his face really hard, and then let him jump out of my arms to freedom. This does not seem to have any effect on him. He just looks mildly bewildered. The second technique is to spank his rump playfully. Again, there’s not much response. Not even the cliché look of superiority most normal cats constantly wear. But I haven’t picked Max up in days and have hardly petted him. I’ve even locked him out of my room. I’m disgusted by him right now. To get my mind off him I think about today’s homework. My teacher wants me to write about something I know a lot about. I glance at a picture of Evan, framed and sitting on my nightstand, where I can see it every night before I go to sleep. I think about Evan’s life and its tragic ending. I wonder if I should write about him. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a story about two twenty-something women, friends, sharing an apartment. This is a true story but names have been changed as you have come to expect. Jane worked at an electronics manufacturer. Mary worked at a book publishing company. Jane was a bit of a home body. Mary was usually out and about. It came to pass that Jane’s boss needed a cat sitter as he was going on vacation. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a small Chihuahua dog. It was especially cold this particular day, and my wife and I had to leave the house overnight, but we could not take our dog with us. Gopher (the dog’s name) usually stayed outside, but we were afraid of coyotes or some wild animals getting him with our not being around. I had constructed a doggy door in our back door, and it stayed closed most of the time, but now, I had decided to put it into service for our pet, so that he could go outside to take care of business, yet stay in the house to stay out of the severe cold. So a plan was born, and we were satisfied that Gopher would be OK for the day without enlisting any neighbors help. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a recurring dream about my childhood dog, Ginger. In the dream, it begins to storm. I am away from home. I think of Ginger. She is outside. I have to do something. I have to get her in. I rush home, but obstacles keep me from reaching my destination. I call my brother. Sometimes he goes and lets Ginger into the house. Sometimes he is too busy. In my dream, I do anything and everything to get home. Finally, I do. I open the back door and Ginger runs in, wet but tail wagging and no worse off. I can feel the anxiety disappearing.

We are flying from Long Beach on Jet Blue, our first flying experience with the upstart. We flew in from Chicago for a surprise birthday party for a beloved cousin and a long getaway weekend with family and friends. The last night cousin David showed us a six-month effort at digitizing old family photos that went back four generations. Memories came back in a flood of emotion and wonder as we revisited cherished photos and ones we had never seen before. In many of the photos were our pets that in some cases marked milestones in our lives. On the plane I decided to recreate the comings and goings of my pet dogs. Read the rest of this entry »

Buford was not as dumb as his name might imply. Well, sometimes he wasn’t, anyway. For a while, he ran with a bad crowd – the dogs from down the road that took to killing the sheep across the river. We knew that our dog was just scavenging what the others had killed; we also knew the sheeps’ owner would have every reason and right to rid himself of any canine scourge, even ours.

So we started chaining Buford up when we weren’t home. It was a long chain, but still: cooped up all day in the driveway with only three trees to play with. And one to play in. It was nearly dead, with a hollow at the top of the trunk that filled with rain on a regular basis. Buford would sometimes scramble up, to stand and drool amid the few large, lopped-off branches before skittering down to wave his long feathery tail at us as we cheered. Read the rest of this entry »

Listen, I get that you’re a cat. I’m actually OK with all that. I like not having to take you on 5am walks or to pry a slobbery, grass-caked tennis ball out of your food hole only to throw it again so that you can have a cheap thrill. You’re above all that. But still…gimme a break, shithead!

It’s like, I’m minding my own business, asleep in my bed, totally dreaming about pizza, and you lay down on my face! Hey, ass butt, news flash: I need that to breath and live! Don’t sleep on it! Shit! Also I can smell your butt when you do that, because your idiot moron cat brain makes you think that I might actually WANT to smell it (which I totally don’t) so you deftly position it right in front of my nose. Here’s a shocker, my friend - your butt smells bad! It smells like a butt that just got pooped out of! DIARRHEA pooped out of. I’m no vet, but you should get that checked out. I know the whole barbed johnson thing makes gettin’ some a bit less complicated for you, but I can tell you from personal experience that girls don’t want to be constantly reminded that you have an asshole and poop comes out of it. Read the rest of this entry »

I have had three guide dogs, and they have all been attuned to my moods. If I am depressed, they seem to be; and if I am happy, they will reflect that, too.

My first guide dog moved with me to Memphis, Tennessee. We didn’t get back home to Nashville very often. Once, I remember, it was three years since we had been there. Yet every time we traveled back to Memphis, my dog would sleep until we were almost there. Then she’d wake up when we got near home! Also, she remembered that we used to live in Nashville, and when we’d go downtown, she’d always still stop at some of the places we used to go when we lived there! I found lots of old friends that way. This never ceased to amaze me how she could do that!

Source: paranormal.about.com

This morning, I was assaulted by my cat in a way that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. My kitties and I have a morning routine that involves saying goodbye before I walk out the door. I was suited up, ready to go, and I walked over to my dresser to retrieve my keys. As usual, my male kitty was lounging on the dresser, waiting for him goodbye scratches. He stood up to give me my usual nuzzle goodbye, and then the most unholy of acts took place. The friendly feline stretched, and the force of his stretch caused his anal glands to express….all over my face and in my mouth.

Now, a little biology background for those of you who aren’t in the know. Dogs and cats have these glands in their anus that get expressed, usually when they defecate. The smell is somewhat akin to rotting bodies that have been dry-rubbed with gorgonzola cheese and then spit-roasted over a pile of burning feces. Yum. Plus, like all organic smells, it tends to bind to fabrics, which makes for a pleasant surprise when your cat rubs its butt on your sheets or couch. But, nothing compares to being sprayed full on in the face with this heinous slime. Read the rest of this entry »

I awoke in the gray of dawn, blinking hard to get my bearings. I was in a small nylon tent on a rocky outcrop jutting into Lake Superior. Through the open flap all I could see was black water meeting vast purple sky.

Besides me, snoring peacefully in his sleeping bag, was my college dorm mate Kurt Iverson, whom everyone called Woodstock, a nickname whose origins not even he knew. The two of us had forged a fast friendship the previous year as freshmen, despite all odds. He was a northern Michigan country kid, lean and angular, with an abiding love of hunting and fishing. He tied his own trout flies and could skin a rabbit in two minutes flat. Read the rest of this entry »