Taxicab Depressions

A couple weeks ago, my mother in law was over visiting her granddaughter, and when she went outside to get something out of her car, and she said, “Hey, there’s a dog out on your porch…”

And in a very “Corporate-American escalate-problems-up-the-ladder-and-get-this-shit-off-my-desk” mentality, my hunnee went outside, quickly surveyed the situation, and called out to me, “Hey, there’s a dog out on our porch…”

Shit… no one up the chain for me to escalate this matter to… CEO sucks. I guess I gotta get off the couch and look into this.

So, I get up and go outside, and there is this Pit Bull puppy, maybe 7 or 8 months old with creepy yellow eyes sitting out there, looking pathetic. Her ribs are showing, she is ravenously hungry, and has some sort of scrapes on her head and sides… she looks “scuffed up” and freaked out, like she’s had a really rough few days out there on the mean streets surrounding the Country Club.

Just like my Dad, I am the biggest mark for strays, runaways, and damsels in distress… there’s no way I’m gonna shoo this pathetic little puppy out of my yard. So I brought her inside and gave her some water and a little food. She really looked like the offspring of some dogs belonging to a guy that lives two doors away, so I leashed her up and walked her over there, but they weren’t missing a puppy. I asked a bunch of my neighbors, 4 and 6 blocks surrounding my place, but nobody was missing a puppy or had any idea who she might belong to. No “lost dog” posters in the neighborhood, nothing…

My wife and her mother were not enthused about having this dog in the house; she has that square, boxy, compact skull structure of a killer, and some seriously creepy yellow eyes. On the other hand, she has the sweetest and most docile disposition… she craves attention. She constantly walks around with her tail tucked between her legs and acting very submissive. She thinks she is a Teacup Chihuahua, wants to be on the couch and on the bed and on your lap, and especially wants to curl up next to my wife. She has a Snoopy collar, her nails are clipped short, and she has the faint whiff of perfumed shampoo on her coat. She is obviously some girl’s lapdog.

But my wife is adamant that this animal is a serious menace to the baby and has to go. I ask why she is worried. She says, “It’s a Pit Bull!”

And I replied, “No, hunnee, it is a puppy… and a pretty docile one at that. Dogs are what you make them. This thing will be roadkill in 2 more days out on the street.” But my hunnee is not convinced, and immediately sets out to dispose of this dog. The first thing she does is send an email off to the Home Owner’s Association and gets an email blast asking if anyone knows who this dog belongs to, and she includes a photo she snapped on her phone.

My wife is not a professional photographer. And the photo she sent to the HOA email blast made the dog LOOK like roadkill.

One person responded to the email, asking, “Is that dog dead…?”

After two or three days, the puppy had me. I told my wife that if we couldn’t find the owner and the final option was a shelter where she might get put down because she looked a little creepy, we’re keeping her. Now my wife is scouring internet forums for lost dogs, calling Pit Bull rescues, but the puppy started to work her charm on my hunnee, who slowly relented… she recently lost a little brown dog she had owned for more than a dozen years. And it truly warms my heart to hear my babe fawning over and baby-talking a little brown dog again.

I’ll never forget the first time I went to my hunnee’s apartment and met Pancho, my future step-dog. He was 60 pounds of badass in a 30 pound bag, very alpha male and protective of his Mommy, and it took me quite a few dates for him to grudgingly give up “Big Dog Status” when I was around. But for Mommy, he was “pooderdink”, and she doted on this dog to a degree that was a little embarrassing. But I loved him too, and losing Pancho was the hardest thing my wife has faced since I met her, short of losing her Dad. So it really is nice to hear her cooing over a little brown dog again, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she is letting the puppy up on the couch when I’m not around…

My daughter loves her and loves to pet her, and while this dog can be as exuberant and spastic as any puppy, she has never even playfully nipped at anyone, not even me when I have rough-housed with her. I know dogs, and this dog doesn’t bite. Even my mother in law has come around to at least trusting her around the baby…

So, she’s family now. Ever since the “Is that dog dead?” email, I’ve been calling her “Roadkill”, or “Roadie” for short. My hunnee hates that, for some reason… she keeps calling her “Rosie”, but that only makes me think of that obnoxious twat Rosie O’Donnell. I will not relent on this; I saved this dog when my wife wanted it gone.

It’s Roadkill. Or Roadie for short…