Dog Blog #2

oh sweet jesus, mary and joseph. it took all i had to drag my ass to PetSmart today for the climactic event known as "puppy graduation." no amount or combination of sexual favors (well, actually just promises of them), wheedling, begging or threatening would convince my sweet husband to accompany me for moral support on his only day off. but how could i blame him? all i do is bitch about how awful it is to have to take my usually loving, funny, loyal best friend to a place where he is forced to sit in the corner of a tiny room, on a very short leash, surrounded by his own furry b.f.f.s while some woman yells, confuses and belittles us, dogs and humans alike. 

thank god for ruthie, owner of trooper, a huge yellow lab who loves to hump bodhi as much as bodhi loves to hump him back. but humping is not permitted in puppy class 101 apparently, even though everyone i've ever met at any dog park anywhere just blushes a bit and and says, "oh, it's just a dominance thing." no, in baby doggy class doing what comes canine-naturally is a sin worse than murder and according to cindy, the "correct" way to teach our pets to curb their carnal urges is to grab both humper and humpee by the collars, rip them apart and loudly yell, 

"WRONG!" i half-heartedly did my best to do just that when trooper mounted bodhi but due to the fact that blue cross/blue shield sucks ass and most likely won't pay for my mandatory shoulder reconstruction needed after pulling 170 pounds of horny hound flesh apart i pulled an anna nicole smith (R.I.P. babe, i really loved your whacked out self) and faked it.  but alas, cindy caught wind of my lacksidasicality and huffed over to tell me once again, how much i suck as a dog owner. 

back to my bud, ruthie, my partner in righteousness, she and i agreed that we would finally stand up for ourselves, our dogs, our classmates and the world at large if (i mean when) ms. dog nazi once again ceased to hold her tongue. unfortunately that cryptic moment occurred when ruthie was forced to take trooper out to pee and it was my turn to make bodhi do the one thing we didn't learn at the one class we missed. the vehemence spewed at me, the thing that caused cindy to get up out of her chair and march over to me in the middle of the micro-room in front of everyone (everyone that is but my ruthie) was so thick, so hostile that its very existence must have created an amnesic affect so strong, so self-preserving, that it's all i can do to use my writers' license and describe it as well as any semi-realistic/based on a sort of true-ish story told to someone's sister's brother's hairdresser in the 1800s...something to do with "sit" vs. "stop" as opposed to "wait" and all the while her scrunched up face smoker's breath voice yelling at me, "did you hear anything i said? how is he supposed to know the difference between sit stay come lay hump don't hump get the mail do the dishes if you don't train him correctly??!!"  bodhi's inching closer to my legs (which, according to cindy-lou-who is a sign of protection/dominance that will most definitely end up producing a full-fledged cold blooded killer dog...ya, or maybe my submissive and loving dog is scared shitless of this woman and is doing his best to protect me?!) i'm blind sighted so all my woman-power shit/witty retorts and strength shrivel up and i stand there like a second grader who just peed her pants, lips trembling and say something like, "um, can i try again?" and then proceed to blame MYSELF for a.d.h.d not because i'm weak but because i'm a nice fucking person and can't fathom how someone can be so mean. someone who is supposed to be teaching us. someone who we paid $109+tax to and for all intents and purposes should be able to remember to take her damn lithium before class.

enter ruthie. i give her "the eyes" and she sits down with trooper, the room is completely silent and i take a deep breath, give my dog (who is standing by the door, visibly shaking) a kiss on his cold wet nose, look cindy right in the eyes and say, "ok, let me get this straight"....blah blah blah insert whatever i think she wants me to do here...."and can you please not talk while i'm doing this because it's really hard to focus when i'm being scolded." 

bodhi rocks, covers for me, would have snuck me a valium if he had one and got his damn diploma.

i take pictures of all the graduates wearing (i'm not kidding) actual graduation hats, not because i'm supposed to but because i know it'll be funny as shit when i post them on this blog.

(later, 'cuz right now i need to give my dog some therapy and hugs and make myself a big fat cosmo).

i thanked and hugged cindy when we left, not condescendingly or because i was trying to earn some karmic credit, but because i know she must not be a happy person to have to be so gruff, so mean, so contradictory.  because her pants are so short and her cigarettes fell out of her pocket once and a dog almost ate them and i went to give them back to her and she looked at me like i was satan. because her big german shepherd mac sits in his cage (which takes up half the tiny room) the whole class and when he barks or whines she yells at him to SHUT UP and KNOCK IT OFF and for some reason, that just doesn't seem like the way a dog trainer should treat her own dog.

my intent is truly not to dis this woman. this dogblog was originally supposed to be funny. but when people, no matter who, what, how or why treat other people, even other creatures for that matter, with hostility and abuse, then my humblest two bits of advice/insight are these:

1. we need to be strong, to stand up for ourselves, our pets, our friends,families and fellow human beings no matter what our race, religion or parental/societal advice may be. doormats do nothing but get stepped on and it is in no way wrong to speak our minds when we feel wronged.

2. for the most part, when people are mean, they are unhappy. they are insecure, jealous and afraid.

they need love. more love. love supreme. god it's hard to hug someone who tells you that you suck but it's common and easy to sink to their level. 

thank you ruthie, for sitting in the park with me and letting me scream. 

thank you bodhisatva for being exactly who you are.

we did it dude, it is finished.