“They’re nice to have. A dog.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Splayed on his back like an overturned tortoise, the dog snores in staccato grunts and fluttering wheezes that are violent enough to startle. Sounds of strangled kazoos, squashed whoopie cushions, warbling carnival organs. He’s a racket, a veritable Concerto for Broken Squeeze Toys, but who would interrupt these guttural snorts of puppy pleasure?
I, for one, enjoy the cacophony. Let sleeping dogs lie, they say. And groan and grrr and croak and rasp. In a way, it’s like the gurgling of an infant, adorable, musical, slightly alarming. It shows the critter’s vim and vigor. And his ability to emit really strange sounds while passed out and dreaming untold tales of fleeing postmen and the earthy fragrance of his fellow hounds’ sphincters.
Cubby the dog stirs. He stretches, this bushel of gray curlicues, letting go one big shuddering whine, as if the stretch pumps out a kind of yawning release. A gusty nostril exhalation and he is awake, eyes ajar, head up, tongue licking the air.
And there, he sees it. His toy, his fresh bone from a Christmas lode of new chews, this one his favorite: a bully bone, which is, literally, a dried bull penis. It looks like a thick rod of beef jerky. It looks, happily, nothing like bovine genitals.
The brown stick is upright between the dog’s front paws, like a cocktail straw in Cabo, and he gnaws it with slobbery gusto. Cubby is a jealous owner. If one of the cats gets within six feet of an idle bully bone, the small dog pounces and chases off the feline, who has no idea what Cubs is on about. The cat’s thought bubble is clear: Good Christ.
Soon, a human bleats the word “out” at Cubby, a word as magical as “open-sesame” or “Beetlejuice” for its causal powers. It means, of course: Let’s go for a walk. Once you say it, there’s no going back. The dog is leaping, yelping, scraping your legs, doing the famed doggie dance that only the coal-hearted can resist.
The walk. An exasperating stop-start excursion, all sniffs and pees and poop, with little in the way of aerobic exercise for the human, making it that much more maddening and futile. But this is for the dog. It’s all for the dog. This doggie bag is not for restaurant leftovers. It’s for dookie, see. For the dog.
Fortunately, dogs snooze with comatose abandon. They’re shameless about it. Insomnia is not a thing with dogs. Cubby does not require my melatonin; he is naturally anesthetized. A soft surface will do. Give him two minutes and he’s out, limbs jerking, squiggly noises emitting from a twitching snout.
He is rather musical in this state. If you press his belly just so, you’ll get a fine bagpipe rendition of “Free Bird” for your troubles.
And it’s always worth the trouble, dogs that is. Barking, scratching, on that rare occasion peeing on the carpet — I can’t think of many canine crimes. Cubby’s got it pretty much down, the dog thang. He might sleep like a rumbling volcano, but he also shows a quiet nobility — an aplomb befitting his rich, regal beard (really, it’s the beard of a meth-head, or Manson) — that makes you look on in adoring awe, and indisputable respect.
GNASHING. 