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Loading...Apparently my dog is quite the looker. I gather this from all the howls of excitement and panting I get from other dogs while taking her on a walk.
Yup, she’s quite the babe, but she certainly doesn’t help things by being such a flirt. Coming from a broken home (she never knew her father), she is quite a needy girl. She’ll strut back and forth and coyly throw back her head and tail ever so seductively in front of every single dog — no matter what gender or how mangy. She’s not picky.
Having gone on just enough blind dates back in the day, I believe I might be an adequate judge of female dog beauty. She’s got the mottled coloring, prominent snout, hanging tongue and well-endowed incisors of the specimens I’ve sat across a table from.
However, I fear all of these attributes are more of a detriment to her romantic fulfillment than an asset. I try to tell her all those dogs are only after her furry body and not for who she is. Like all teenagers, however, she doesn’t listen. We don’t speak the same language.
Despite being thrilled with almost every dog she sees on our walks, there is one particular collie, a Lassie look-alike, that she positively falls head-over-paws for. I call him Fabio. He gives off the air of the “most interesting dog in the world” from behind his chain-link fence. She always runs up to the fence at the first sight of him literally panting with desire.
With an effect of profound self-assuredness Fabio will saunter over to the fence, give her a long, intoxicating sniff and proceed into a perfect rapture of barking. Detecting the hint of meter and cadence to the howls, I decided once to bring out my cell phone and flip to the Google Translator app, scroll to the Canine to English setting, and record the racket.
Sure enough, Fabio was serenading my dog with banal sentimentalities.
Below is a transcription of Fabio’s soliloquy. I call it “Ode to the Chain-link Fence.” Keep in mind Google’s translation is certainly not perfect — I’m sure this rhymed better in the barky language (actually, everything rhymes in the barky language) — but this is the gist of it:
Curse you, oh bane of all dogdom,
To deprive this lovely specimen of howling beauty
Of the caress of my flowing golden locks
Is the worst of all depravities.
You restrain my only dogging desire,
“Doggedly” (ha!) holding out of reach
The fulfillment of canine carnality.
Your silvery interlocks of chained links
Only form a greater chain around my heart.
Well, needless to say, my ignorant teenager dog is simply putty in his paws after all this. She starts running back and forth, jumping and clawing at the fence, barking out “Take me, Fabio, I’m yours!” That’s when I turned the translator off. There are things you just don’t want to know about your dog.
It’s not all romance and lustful panting with my dog, though. Apparently she has had some episodes of spurned affection with a few of the dogs in the neighborhood. It’s like she has a “history” with these mutts and positively bristles with a snarling hatred when she passes by that can only be explained by intense jealousy or a nasty breakup.
Inevitably, a great cacophony of barks and howls erupt. Being a human male who must learn his lessons at least several times, I again whipped out my trusty Google Translator during one of these exchanges:
Neighbor dog: “Bark! [English word for female dog]”
My dog: “Hey you fleabag, come over here and say that!”
“Oh, you’d like that wouldn’t you? You filthy [English word for child born out of wedlock]!”
“Yeah, you should be barking. We’re dogs, we’re all [plural of English word for child born out of wedlock]!”
“No way, you mangy mutt! I got papers!”
“Oh yeah!? That just means your mama was pimped at some incestuous puppy mill!”
“Now you’re hitting below the collar! I’m gonna tear your throat out and feast on your worm-ridden carcass!”
“You so much as lay a paw on me, my boyfriend Fabio will rip you up so fine your fleas will have nowhere to land!”
“Fabio ain’t gonna do nothing! That poser serenades all the [plural of English word for female dog]!”
“That’s it! You’re one dead dog!!!”
This is where I had to yank the leash and drag my dog home.
Yes, beauty comes with a price. Many times I’ve wished my dog was a bit uglier and more discriminating. There is an overgrown hairless rat Chihuahua in the neighborhood that haunts my nightmares, but my degenerate, streetwalker dog still flirts with the freak.
I try to tell her that when you’re not picky, jealousy, insincerity and betrayal are going to “dog” you all your life. Unfortunately, the stupid Google Translator doesn’t go from English to Canine — some lame excuse about the barky language not having a proper alphabet (that a dog can read, anyway) — so I will never be able to share my wisdom. I guess she’s doomed to a dog’s life.
Hamilton is the Creative Director at Transcript Bulletin Publishing and is beginning to tire his coworkers with his delusions of fame and glory.
