Display by Label: Honey

"What is it? Do I stink?"

"Kinda like dog."

"Cool. Honey and I have bonded in smell."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"The thing is, Baby...she doesn't smell like you. It's not a two-way street."

link to this | comments (1) | File:  TheLine  Honey  Cath 

Late at night, when I'm in my office and only the halogen arm lamp above me is on, Honey will sometimes catch a glimpse of my reflection in the sliding glass doors and she'll start barking her deep burglar-alarm bark. I'll assure her that it's only me, but she keeps at it, the hair standing up on her back, until I can finally snap her attention away from the reflection and show her that look, I'm right here, Honey. And she will look at me, pupils big and dark, her brow creased with worry. Then she'll look back at the night glass casting my reflection. Then back at me. And she will huff and sigh and make this agitated noise, almost like speaking and almost like howling. And she will come over to me and nudge me with her nose and put her paw on my leg and wag her tail. Like she is so goddamned happy. So relieved that I'm there. Because, holy crap Daddy-O, did you see that? There was somebody who looked just like you outside. And that was some scary shit, man.

The funny thing is she makes this mistake again and again. Because she doesn't get that it's an illusion—that I'm the thing she's seeing out there. And the fact that she gets so upset, and then so visibly relieved when she sees me ... it kind of cracks me up. Because otherwise she's a smart dog. She can sit and lie down and roll over. She can lift her front paw in the air when she's prompted to "wave." She knows how to fetch her leash from the doorknob when it's time for a walk. But the whole reflection thing, it just escapes her every time.

And I love that about her. And I get it. I do. Because we all have those things that we just don't grasp. We all have those mistakes we make, over and over.


Despite what you may have heard, I am not a dog. I walk upright. I understand the truth about mirrors. I'm a reasonably intelligent guy. And I can do any number of tricks. But I've got these mistakes I keep making. I've made them as long as I can remember, and I've yet to learn the trick of how to stop. And actually, if I'm going to be honest, I don't really want to. Because sometimes I like to make them. Sometimes, I set out to make them—on purpose.

And I used to get angry at myself about this. I used to huff and howl and scream at my reflection. But all that did was make me go hoarse. And so now, more and more, I just laugh. And I drink to forget. And I resolve to myself that I will do it again as soon as I can. Because the mistakes define me, brother. The trick is learning to deal with the consequences. And I guess that's the whole point. And I guess I kind of like that.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  TheLine  Honey  Chewing 

I've always heard it said that dogs are great chick magnets. Personally, I haven't found this to be the case. I think that's because "creepy unshaven smelly dude" outweighs "cute cuddly puppy" by a factor of three to one for women in the Jersey burbs. But I'll say this: Honey can turn a big, tough guy's heart to putty without even trying. And while this isn't usually a goal of mine, it can prove useful every now and then.

Last week, I had to make several trips to the Mazda dealership because Hoshi was having some issues with her breaks and suspension. Turns out she needed new rotors and there was a leak in one of her rear shocks. All the repairs were under warranty, which was nice, and while I was there I went ahead and had her oil and steering fluid changed. She seems much happier now, and the steering wheel no longer shakes dramatically when you break due to the warped rotors. And this all makes for a far less harrowing driving experience.

I like to expose Honey to new situations, so I brought her with me to the dealership each time I went. For me, bringing Honey places like this means bringing along a bag full of toys and treats to keep her entertained, as well as a blanket (God-forbid she lie on the cold, hard ground!) and a bottle of water and her "travel bowl" in case she gets thirsty.

Just to be clear, for any new readers: Honey is a dog.

So I enter the waiting room of the car dealership to pick up Hoshi and I'm carrying this arsenal of dog accoutrements with me in a SXSW festival bag which is slung over one shoulder, the blanket over the other, and Honey on her lead sniffing the floor next to me.

And maybe I should pause here to say that it might be that this looked a little ... what's the word ... "unmanly." You might even go so far as to call it "sissified." And believe me, I was conscious of this fact, especially since I was entering an auto shop, a place where masculinity seeps up through the cracks in the floor, where no matter who you are, your voice seems to want to drop a couple of octaves as soon as you set foot inside.

By the third trip there, the guys at the dealership knew Honey by name. And she was feeling more comfortable in this new environment and was eating up all the attention. A heavyset guy with a beard came out from behind the counter to pet her. He sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting room and called her over to him. I let her go play with him so I could sign the paperwork without her pulling and when I turned back, she was on her hind feet licking the guy all over his big bearded face which was now just one huge giddy smile.

And all at once, I no longer felt self-conscious about the blanket over my shoulder or the half-dozen toys in the bag I was carrying. Because this man who had the stature and appearance of somebody you might be intimidated by when you brought your car to him for repairs, had tears in his eyes. I'll say that again: there were tears of joy in his eyes. He was visibly choked up over my dog.

One of his workmates noticed this and asked him what was up.

"Sorry," he said "Dogs always do this to me. It's just ... she's so soft."

And the funny part was nobody laughed at him or ribbed him for being a pussy or anything like that. Because we all understood. And for a moment we all looked upon Honey in awe and acknowledged her sheer power over our hardened, man-hearts and we choked back our own tears and resisted the urge to hug one-another and start talking about our feelings.

And here's what I know: From now on, I'm always bringing a dog with me to car dealerships. Because I've finally figured out how to level the playing field.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Oogah  Hoshi  Honey  Grunt 

I have a hard time letting go of things. No, really. I know it's hard for some of you to believe. But it's true. I tend to do a bit of the Dwelling. Upon subjects ranging from what to have for breakfast (Is it really safe to have grits, again? Answer: Yes. Of course.) to more serious things like what to put in a glass of scotch (Drambuie, Amaretto ... or just rocks? Answer: Just the ice, Daddy. This isn't the 60s.) But one of my favorite things to dwell on is travel, especially of the air variety. I've written before about this topic, right before a trip to the same place I'm going this weekend, in fact, so I'm sorry to be redundant. But this time, I've got a new source for my Fret: Honey.

It's hard to believe, but this will mark the first time I've been away from Honey for longer than a day since I brought her home back in April. Now, she won't be totally alone. C is staying behind, so she'll be able to take care of her most of the time. And I'm sure she'll do an excellent job. But just in case, it can't hurt for me to type up a page full of instructions for her, can it? And just give her some tips about things. You know, like how much food to give her. And what times we go for walks. And when and where she might poop. Or the more practical stuff ... like how she likes her pillow fluffed. Or how she appreciates her kong served with a side of caviar. And how she usually enjoys hugs and lots of belly-rubbing when she wakes up from naps.

See, the thing is ... C just doesn't have my penchant for pampering Honey silly. She takes a slightly different approach. She treats Honey kind of like ... a dog. And I'm not sure how I feel about it, honestly. Like this morning. As a good "warm-up," I decided to linger in bed and let C take Honey out for her morning two pees and a poo. This happens every morning at 6:30. Pee in spot one. Pee in spot two. Poop in random location to be decided. You could set your watch to it. C has done this job in the past. She knows the routine. In fact, I think she invented it. But I've taken the job over more and more for two reasons: C likes to hit snooze, and I suffer from a slight case of OCD. But I've grown to kind of like the morning trek outside. And what I've learned is that Honey needs support when she does her business. She needs encouragement and congratulations. But this morning C decided to just change all of that up, and to just stand at the back door while Honey went out to do her stuff. I heard the door open and close ... a little too quickly. So I had to get up and investigate.

"That was quick."

"Yeah, I just stood at the back door and let her go out by herself."

"What?!"

"Yeah."

"Did she poop?"

"No. She just peed."

"Well, of course she just peed! But she needs to poop. I mean, there is poop in her butt ready to come out. She just doesn't realize it."

"I thought it would be a good experiment."

Head-shaking. Sighing. Exasperation.

Needless to say, I took her out to poo.

I'm not sure if it was entirely clear or not, but there was OCD, and a touch of the morning grogginess to blame for this little tirade. I weren't always so level-headed, folks.

I admit it: I'm guilty of a little pampering. And so I guess my biggest worry about leaving for a few days is that Honey will just be too sad without me around and will decide she can't take it any longer and propel herself through a second-story window. I just see her waking up each morning and doing her butt-shake, foot-stomping thing over to my side of the bed, her ears back, her tail wagging, only to find that I'm not there. And I imagine this will crush her soul like nothing else in her six months on this earth. And she'll fall into a fit of depression and start hitting the bottle and smoking Pall Malls. And I'll come back home, and say, "Look Honey, it's me! I'm back!! It's okay now. All will be right with the world." But it will be too late. I'll have an alcoholic, chain-smoking dog on my hands. And she'll never forgive me for the pain and suffering I've caused her.

The truth is she'll probably see the empty spot on the bed and be sad for about the time it takes her to realize it's time for breakfast. Then she'll quickly go back to pondering the tragedy of leashes. Or dreaming about giant rawhides covered with bowlfuls of melted provolone cheese. Or peanut-butter-and-chicken stuffed kongs dancing with giant, day-glo pull-toys on a road paved with jerky treats. Yeah, she's probably more likely to pine over the neighbor's dog, Riley, than she is over me. And how she'd like to chase him in the back yard and lick at his slobbery mouth until it makes all the humans nearby want to vomit.

The truth is I'm the one who's going to miss her. I'm going to miss the routine of taking care of her. Of going for walks. Of teaching her tricks. Of giving her belly-rubs and hugs and kisses on the snout. It's me who's going to have the separation anxiety. I'm the one with issues, here. Clearly.

So if you see me, unshaven and unbathed. Passed out somewhere in Big-D with a bottle of Dewars in one hand, mumbling something about don't forget her bed-time snack, just look the other way. I'll be better in a few days. It's just my way of dealing.

link to this | comments (7) | File:  Travel  Honey 

When I told Honey I had posted a video of her carrying that paper across the street, she was like, "Oh, Christ, Dad. What's next, then? Talking about how it seems only yesterday I was this big or carrying around my lost baby teeth to show the neighbors?"

I thumbed the premolar in my pocket. "Of course not!" I said.

The weird part wasn't that Honey, you know ... spoke. It was that she spoke with an English accent. It wasn't exactly a proper, "Received English" kind of English, but it wasn't quite an East End of London, Cockney type of thing, either. It reminded me of the Beatles. She had a sort of nasal thing going on. Like John.

"Is that Scouse?" I asked her.

"'Tis. What of it?"

"Where did you pick that up?"

"It's a long story ..."

Apparently, even though Honey's mom, a Pit Bull, was from North Jersey, her dad, a German Shepherd, Vizsla mix, came over from Liverpool on a cargo ship carrying boxes of Kongs. Honey had spent a few formative weeks with him before he left her and her mom alone under the wood deck of a rairoad house in Queens. Before he left, though, he had taught Honey her ABC's and implanted a bit of Merseyside in her speech.

Honey went on to tell me that she didn't like this trend of mine, posting photos of her. And now videos. She was worried this would all end in some sort of doggy blog.

"I know. I know. You're right. But the strange thing is I don't really care. I just don't get it. I've lost my perspective on this shit. I guess I'm feeling old," I explained. "I mean, listen to this: did you know that the baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album is now 17 and is close to graduating high school?"

Honey just stared at me blankly.

"Sorry. I'll play it for you sometime. It's a terrible cliché to say this, but the album changed my life. Which probably isn't entirely accurate. It's more likely that my life was changing anyway, and that album just happened to serve as a soundtrack for it. And it's just weird. That baby ... is now a freakin' teenager. Which also makes me realize that Kurt Cobain died 14 years ago. And at some point after that we wound up with Techno. And I'm not sure which of those two things is more tragic."

"Jesus, Dad. Snap out of it, mate. Stop living in the past. Look, here's what I'm saying: You can write about me. Just tell people the real shit, man. You know ... what it's like for me out there on the streets. About my friend Riley who lives across the street and who's a lot of fun to play with and all, but you know—just between you and me—the bloke is a few short of a full bag of goodies, ain't he? Or those Daschunds, Oscar and Woody. Holy crap. Those two take the piss out of me every time we pass them on the street. Their constant name-calling. All I want to do is play and they're all making fun of my ears and asking when I'm going to grow into these feet and shit like that. I think I'll probably eat one of them one day when I'm bigger. Then there's that crazy Italian Greyhound, Lucus, who never says a thing, but looks like he's got all this pent-up sexual frustration, poor thing. You should talk about this shit, Dad. This is real bloody doggy drama, right here in the North Jersey burbs."

"I'll keep it in mind," I said. "You just concentrate on not pulling on your leash, and let me worry about the blog, okay?"

"Whatever," she said, and went back to a rawhide.

Adolescents.

link to this | comments (8) | File:  Music  Ho_Hum  Honey  Age 

This past week, our neighbors went on vacation and they asked me to pick up their mail and paper. At the same time, Honey has been learning how to "take," "bring," and "give" things. So, what better opportunity to put her new skills to the test? Here she is picking up our neighbor's paper and bringing it back to our house. Is she a bad-ass or what?

Song credit: Old 97's Theme Song, from Hitchhike to Rhome. I'm a little disappointed I wasn't able to sync up the end of the song with the movie file better. Oh well ... my movie-editing skills are a work-in-progress.


link to this | comments (4) | File:  Honey 

The book says that accidents will happen with these puppy creatures, but I had no idea how quickly the shit would drop. Literally. On my kitchen floor. It took all of twenty minutes for that first turd to fall. And it really fell, flat and hot and reeking like something dishonest, on the dog's water bowl. Dog's aren't supposed to crap on their own water bowl, are they? Don't they know about not shitting where they eat? I have to assume that normally she would not have considered this option. But this wasn't a normal time for her. And in the altered mental state she was in—still a bit out of sorts from having just been spayed a day earlier, and now finding herself in a strange home after a strange ride in a strange truck with a strange guy sporting a strange goatee on his strange face—for her, up was down, right was left. Water bowl was poop depository.

I accept the blame, because I didn't appreciate just how finely-tuned an instrument was the puppy digestive system. The book does indeed say that when a puppy eats, it will immediately need to poop. But I figured "immediately" meant, you know, something reasonable. Like within a half-hour. Turns out pups are supremely unreasonable. And immediately ... means immediately. If food goes in, poop is going to come out. It's actually kind of beautiful in its simplicity, when it isn't happening in your kitchen.

Anyway, for this pup, disoriented and maybe a bit scared, if poop was going to come out, it might as well go in the water bowl. I think this is why I have always been a cat person. I don't care what altered state of mind a cat is in, or how scared it might be, or if she happens to be riding the crest of a blue-fuzz, anus-tingling pot (catnip) high, that cat won't be shitting in her water bowl. Under the bed, maybe. Or behind the sofa. Or in the closet. But not in the bowl. Lord no. Not a cat. That would be barbaric.

Let me back up a bit ... I was supposed to pick the pup up around 4 pm on Tuesday. Thinking ahead, I had asked the foster parent not to feed the pup her afternoon meal so that she'd have an empty stomach for the ride home. The book informed me that this was a good idea. The book is full of good ideas. And we're going by the book. But it's impossible to remember everything you've read in this book. Because it's full of the kind of detailed information that only somebody who has raised dogs all his life could possibly absorb. For this reason, we have a backup book, to clearly outline the basics. Even with these two books, I can tell it's not going to be enough. Because knowledge washes over you—as knowledge is apt to do—slowly, like one of those energy-saver light bulbs that are so popular these days. It takes a second to heat up, but then it burns strong and bright.

See, I remembered the food-in, shit-out rule. I did. I just remembered it a moment too late.

When the pup and I got home, I took her right outside to pee in her pee spot. Then I showed her around the house. Then I fed her. Check. Check. Check. Man, going by the book is easy. If I keep on like this, there won't be any accidents and the dog will be potty trained tomorrow! Idealism is such a neat trick our minds play on us.

I texted C:

Got home. She peed outside. I showed her the house and she's eating. I wasn't sure how much to give her.

I sent that message and watched her eat a little while. Then I started another text message. I've still got the incomplete message in my 'Drafts' on my phone. It begins like this:

She cried a lot in the truck ...

See the ellipsis at the end there? That wasn't actually part of the message. I added that in. It marks the exact moment when I looked up to discover this pretty pup, so cute and cuddly, squatting over her water bowl and taking a dump. As the book tells one to do in situations like this, I did not scold her. I just raised my voice. I intended it to sound strong and confident and alarming. Like this: Ahhhhh!! But I think it came out sort of questioning and confused, tinged with a bit of plea. Like this: Ahhhhh?!? Are you kidding me?!? I just lifted her up and took her outside. Once there, she promptly set to work not shitting. Instead, she decided this was a perfect time to hop around in the grass and look cute and play and do just about everything else but expel poop from her butt.

I brought her back inside and went to work cleaning the bowl. I'm not sure how many fractions of a second transpired upon re-entering the kitchen before another round of poop, this one more explosive and terrible and foul, began flowing out of this innocent-looking puppy's ass onto the floor.

The book says when you clean up puppy poop you should make sure the pup doesn't see you do it. Otherwise, she might come to think of you as her maid.

Probably some more good advice. But once again, too late.

I canceled the text I had been composing to C and began a new one:

PLEASE BRING ODOR NEUTRALIZER.

So ... in case it's not clear already, C and I have a new pup. And her name is Tawny, for her color. She's half German Shepherd and half Pit Bull. (A little heavier on the Pit Bull.) Her story is that she was rescued several weeks ago from a crack house somewhere in Plainview, NY, where she was living with her sisters and brothers underneath a porch. She and all her siblings were taken in by the good folks at All Star Pet Rescue in Linden, NJ, where they remained for the last several weeks until C and I saw her photo on the Internets and got all mushy-hearted over her. She's only eleven weeks old, so she's got a lot of growing yet to do. She has pretty eyes and a beautiful coat and she's really very smart (aside from that water-bowl pooping incident, which we won't bring up ever again.) She fetches balls (and kongs) like a pro, and one out of three times, if she's not too distracted, she'll sit when prompted. (Actually, this might be completely accidental.) Her favorite thing in the world is to sit on my lap and chew a bone.

We have commenced the crate training, so hopefully she'll be house-broken in the next three weeks. That's also around the time she'll get her final round of shots and can go out and explore and meet other dogs in the neighborhood.

The book says she should be getting lots of human contact right now. But that's been sort of a problem since we don't know too many people here yet. So hopefully this doesn't mean she'll be afraid of visitors. Since she was rescued at such a young age, she probably didn't inherit any emotional or psychological trauma from her poor, early living conditions. And that's really great. Because it means I have a clean slate upon which to instill my own neurosis and powerful psychological baggage. Yee-haw!

UPDATE: We've changed her name to Honey. Tawny just wasn't working.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  Honey