Bad Dog

Not too long ago, God rewarded me with a dog. You scoff? Of course he came from God. It's no mistake that when you spell God backwards, it's dog.

What I find most hilarious about this turn of events is not only did I get a dog, I got a very bad dog. Seriously. Here. There he is. Just look at him. I had to put a bandana on him because he's such a badass. I've got him as my background on my computer at school and the kids tell me I've got a gangsta dog. Whut up, Atticus-G?

Seriously. He's such a hustla. Every time I turn around, he's stolen something from the garbage can. Next thing you know, I'm going to find him selling my socks at a traffic light. He'll have a good story to tell the cops, too. The fell off the truck, you see, and he only noticed it because he absolutely wasn't chasing squirrels.

Not long after I first got him, I bought a dog-training book because every time I left the house for work, I came home to find he'd chewed up something new. I gated him into my dining room. He broke down the gate. I bought a taller stronger gate. He jumped over it. I installed a fancy gate. He broke into the bathroom and ate the contents of the garbage. I was coming home from lunch every day just to walk him and still he was eating things. When he broke into my bedroom and ate the power cable for my laptop, I knew he had to be stopped.

So I bought the Dog Whisperer book because I have a secret crush on Cesar Milan. He's such an alpha dog, that Cesar. Anyway, I stayed up half the night reading the book and left it sitting on the coffee table. You guessed it -- he ate my dog training book.

Next time I have to teach my students irony, I know what example I'm going to use.

Of course, as an English teacher I had to name him after my favorite character in literature, so I call him Atticus, although everyone I know seems to misunderstand the name. People who think they're hilarious call him Abacus, and one friend even pretends that he can speak binary. He points to my dog, shouts "1!" and Atticus sits down. (Traitor.) My father watched him for me the other day and called him asparagus. Nobody wants to call my dog by his actual name. Even my niece Vicky, who is still learning how to speak, calls him Patticus. This make sense to her I think because what else do you do but pat a dog? He doesn't care. All he wants is the treats that she doles out liberally.

I'm gushing about my dog for two reasons: one, I can't help myself, and two, I can't help myself. The minute someone comes up to me and says, tell me about your dog, I can't stop myself from beginning ten minutes of dog stories. It's bad. I'm like people with children except I have no children. I have a dog. A very very bad dog.