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Good Boy
If you were to see my dog you would know. Not immediately, not straight away, it would take a few minutes but you would be able to guess pretty quickly, and a glance into his eyes would confirm it. Somehow humans are disarmed by the innocent cuteness of a newborn baby, a sweet little girl or a puppy, well my dog retained that throughout his years and the first reaction is always; "aw, how cute, isn't he sweet?!"
And then they do it, they do the one thing that has condemned my dog to eternal suffering. Maybe first they want to pet him, maybe they want to ruffle the fur on top of his head, or stroke underneath his chin, he loves that. Sometimes dog people will pat his flanks, knowing that a dog enjoys that second only to a hearty scratching against a rough brick wall when an itch sets in. My dog doesn't itch, or if he does, he doesn't feel it, he doesn't feel much of anything.
Once they've shown my dog the attention they think he deserves for being the cutest, sweetest dog they have ever seen they want to take something of him with them so that they can remember him, show him off to their friends and say "look, isn't this the cutest dog that you ever saw? Doesn't this dog put all other dogs to shame and make them look like scruffy mongrels?" before telling them where they can find my dog so that they can see him for themselves.
Years of being the cutest dog on the planet and having his picture with their camera phones has drained the soul of my dog away, bled it dry. If you look into the eyes of my dog you see the kind of eternal sadness of a man who had everything and lost it on a bad throw of the dice. It is this sadness that you see only if you look at the dog and not the furry body he inhabits.
Jul.29.2007