ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 13, 1996 TAG: 9610150149
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: GERRY DAVIES
The late Charles Bukowski, noted poet and degenerate, wrote a volume of verse titled "Love Is a Dog from Hell."
He nearly had it right. In reality, a dog is love from Hell.
I speak from experience.
When my wife said it was time to get a dog, I thought it a good idea at first. Then Clare took the kids on an unannounced visit to the Montgomery County Animal Shelter. They'd planned to just look, she said when they got back. But, well, the shelter had this puppy, found wandering in a trailer park, whose time was almost up, and ...
Now she was ours.
She didn't look at all like what I'd envisioned. I had pictured something big and manly that would stand nobly by my side on a mountaintop. A wolfhound, maybe. Ol' Yeller, at least. With luck, it would learn to fetch beer.
Instead we had something that looked like a cross between a terrier, a beagle and a rat. She was high-strung, yappy and inexcusably ugly. My guess is that she was a Virginia Tech vet school experiment gone terribly, terribly wrong.
She was wearing a hot-pink collar, too. (Nice touch, Clare. Yech.)
The kids named her Molly (I prefer "Ratdog"), and she soon became the world's most expensive free dog. She broke her leg running around the yard in a deranged frenzy. That cost $200. She escaped from the house umpteen times and finally got hit by a car. That cost $600. She chewed up a software package. Another $300.
We tried to get rid of Ratdog. Clare found a nice woman in Christiansburg who wanted a dog for her son. They called back two days later. Ratdog was driving their neighbors nuts, and they were terribly sorry but could we come get her?
The pound wasn't an option. Clare wouldn't take her, and if I did I could picture the aftermath.
"Where's the dog, Mommy?"
"Daddy had her killed, sweetie."
Eventually, we made a strategic decision that I swear made sense at the time. OK, we thought, she's high-strung. Maybe she needs another dog to help her work off her energy. So Clare watched the New River Current and saw an ad from Radford.
"How could anyone abandon a dog this sweet?" it said.
It must have been easy.
We brought home Maggie, another creature of suspect ancestry, who has turned out to be addicted to injection-molded rubber and plastic. Dolls, action figures, stuffed animals' eyes and noses - everything falls prey. Her favorite is Barbie, which at least is the politically correct thing to gnaw to pieces.
Pretty soon, instead of Cinderella Barbie and Ballerina Barbie, my daughter had Venus de Milo Barbie and Quadruple Amputee Barbie.
Maggie (I prefer "Politically Correct Dog") also is an escape artist. But, unlike Ratdog - who wanders only to the neighbors' yards, where she yaps endlessly at anything that moves - PC Dog frequents a shop called For the Birds at Bonomo's Plaza in Blacksburg, where a saint-like lady tracks us down each time.
(Hint: If you want to fully qualify for sainthood, ma'am, next time keep her.)
Even the dogs' good points are bad. PC Dog and Ratdog are so affectionate you'd gladly kill them. Their theory of companionship: I'm a dog, you're a person, we're in the same room, you should be petting me. That's your job, and I'll shove my nose in your face until you do it.
Some of you, I'm sure, are now about to put pen to paper and tell me it's my own fault. To you I say: I know. I own bad dogs because I'm a bad dog owner. Had I a firm, consistent hand with these mutts, I'd own a couple of Lassies.
Really, really ugly Lassies.
But I'm planning to change. Sincerely I am. From now on, every time PC Dog gnaws another Barbie, I'll tell her immediately to stop.
Then I'll use the most effective behavior modification technique I've ever seen.
I'll shove my nose in her face until she does.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines KEYWORDS: 3DAby CNB