Crazy

DOG'S LIFE

by A. León y León
(A homage to that that keeps me from loosing touch with reality...)

My name is Crazy, I'm a pointer, five and half years old and lead a dog's life.

My first youth was really traumatic. I was one of many puppies born on the same litter. Thanks to a great miracle did I survive, since we were too many puppies in the litter it was very difficult for our mother to bring us up healthy and strong.

I'm a pedigree dog, my father was a South American Champion. Of course I took to my mother's side of the family, I inherited her color and size, but my "mommy” loves me even so.

Once we were weaned, one by one, my brothers left, until I was the only one left with my parents. But they didn't love me too much. My ears were bitten, and my food was stolen by my own parents. To protect me, I had to be enclosed in a small cage where I hardly had enough space to move, it was almost hidden in a forgotten place of the flat roof of our human’s house. And I grew up oppress by loneliness, with several complexes, badly nourished and loveless.

Until one day, someone came for me. They put me into a cardboard box and into a car. "Where are they taking me?", I wonder. To tell the truth, I wasn't very afraid, nothing could be worse than the life I led...

When we finally arrive, the box was handed over to a ridiculous looking woman (one of those that "is scare to death of dogs") and of course she let the box fall to the hard floor. What would I do? Helpless and skinny as I was! They pick me up, put me back in the box and try to groom me enough, so I couldn't look so terrible.

Riiiiiiiing!!!!! (the doorbell didn't go ding-dong, in this new place). The door was opened to my new life. A smiling woman came out, and she changed her smiling face for a frightened look as soon as she saw me. "Oh God!", I thought, "she doesn't like me." I was full of complexes then. Nowadays I just can't understand how I could have had such an absurd thought, I'm so very lovely ... They put the box down in a small table in the living room, and took me out of the box holding me by the skin and put me down on the floor. The frightened woman, when she could finally speak, asked if I was not going to die overnight... Until then I hadn't realize how terribly skinny I was.

The veterinarian said that I was undernourished and my calcium level was low, and I had several other deficiencies, but nothing that a good nourishing diet, some vitamins and lots of medicines wouldn't help. I was five months old, and I had to be overfeed until I was a year old. I wouldn't believe in so much happiness...

My "mommy" - she likes to call herself like that and I let her because that is my way of overindulging her, and her way of getting over her maternal frustrations - dedicated herself to feeding and caring for me, ever since. She religiously followed the doctors instructions, giving me all that ton of medicines, some of that stuff was really terrible to swallow. But I was always rewarded with some delicious hot milk afterwards, that made me forget any bad flavor... Even now, I still love milk and drink it whenever I can... Of course I have no lactose tolerance problems as my mommy does, so I can clean up a whole quart of milk all by myself.

To tell the truth I also like detergent water, and that's how I got my name. True. Just after I arrived to my new home, mommy left me on the back yard while she went to answer the phone. Since I was all alone I stop shaking and decided to explore my new whereabouts. I found a big tub with a delicious liquid that of course I had to try, and started drinking all I could. Suddenly my mommy came back, with a friend of hers that immediately decided to become my godmother, she saw what I was doing and started shouting: "What are you doing! Are you crazy???" (She was speaking half in Spanish half in English, being ridiculously Peruvian in that moment...) That is how I got my name, baptizing myself, with detergent water. I remember that when I was newly arrived at home, I could hardly walk on the wooden floors, I was used to walking in Lima's flat roof, rough cement floors. It was really something to see me trying to walk around my new home. They put me on the floor and my legs started to go sideways and there was nothing I could do to stop it, almost as if I was standing over soapy water. I received several hard blows. Nevertheless, after a week I ran all across the house, almost as if I had always lived there. And after a month, I was fat, so fat, that I was almost unrecognizable, and this made my mommy deliriously happy. Long after that, we learned that being fat was not a sign of health and was totally improper in a pure breed dog like I.

When I arrived at the neighborhood the only other dog was Rasta, a black, mutt bitch, a little older than me. Basically I have no racial or social prejudices, so we quickly became good friends, we ran all day long from side to side in the little park in front of the house. That is how I started to conquer the neighbors. I was sociable and mischievous, I liked to be petted and flatter, and the neighbors where happy seeing me run like mad. I have always honored my name.

The only darkness in my horizon was that terrible man that lived with mommy, and who hated me as much as she loved me. He could never get over feeling jealous of me. Was it my fault that mommy liked me more than him? - of course that was logical since I was the one that gave her the love and care she needed. Furthermore, when I arrived to my house, he was not here yet. He came after me, and he had no respect for his seniors. Afterwards I found out he was mommy’s husband and they were trying to make up. But he really treated me badly and he hit me always on mommy’s back. The day he left forever I became the happiest dog in the universe. Now I had my mommy all to myself... When that rustic ask her to choose between us two, mommy did the right thing and chose me.

My childhood was like that of any other dog, surrounded by love, kindness and fondness. Never again was I hungry. Almost always I had someone to play with, or someone that wanted to coddle me, or someone who wanted to feed me. At first I ate anything and everything (he who has suffer hunger, has no loathing for food) but afterwards I became a Sybarite and started to choose that that I was about to swallow.

I could also forget about being lonely, since the house was full of cats. I won’t deny that some cats (the older ones), were not very friendly with me, but with others we became such good friends that you would find us sleeping, huddle together and I even let them eat from my own plate (of course only when I didn’t like the food...).

Some time after that Kayser arrived at the neighborhood, he was a lovely German Shepherd puppy and he came to live in the house next to mine. I was about a little over a year then. Immediately I adopted him and we became good friends.

Wait... I’m hearing the microwave’s bells. That must be my food, so I better run and desperately take over my special dog dish. Truly, it seems I have never been able to get over the trauma of not having had enough to eat in my first childhood.

Ah! Those chicken necks were delicious. I took the opportunity to bury some in the garden to eat after lunch. I love to fill the garden with holes. When I was a puppy I succeeded in destroying the garden, but now they have again cultivated grass and other plants. It makes it more difficult for me to dig, nevertheless I manage somehow to bury my food. Of course mommy can always tell when I have done so, I usually forget to drink some water to clean my soiled nose full of mud. And when she comes to scold me, I only have to look at her with my poor, undernourished, forsaken dog look, the same I used the first time I ever saw her and that stole her heart forever... It never fails. Now, back to my neighborhood friends, some time after Run appear. It turn out, that he was a half brother of mine, on my father’s side, I belong to my mother’s last litter... Oooops! Mommy is protesting. She says that mother is the one that brings you up, and not the one that gives birth, so she is the only mother I have...

Way apart is Sigfried, my best friend. I met him when he was but a pup, a lovely Weimaraner puppy, he came to visit the park on one of his first promenades out. We immediately became friends and I taught him how to play, how to protect himself, how to nibble tree branches, to come back when his owner call... We became great friends and our mommies wouldn't do anything else, but become friends also, since we were playing together several times a day.

But the neighborhood also has a bunch of horrible Yorkshires... Grrrrr, I hear them coming my way, with that horrible barking of them, that seems more like howling. Excuse me for a moment, I have to go and bark ferociously at the window, maybe they’ll learn their lesson this time.

They finally left. I’m trying to clear my throat, after so much barking. In front of the window, stands an easy chair that I have chosen as mine, it has become my bed because it has an ideal position. All I have to do is raise my head, and I can see everything that is going on in the street outside. I get so work up when I see my friends are outside, or mommy or her friends, or my uncle (my mommy’s brother). Of course I had to use this chair as a bed after my uncle evicted me of my bed, I mean, his bed... All I had to do was wait till he was fast asleep and then I could climb silently. Since he sleeps like a stone, I could stretch all over until I was comfortable enough and he didn’t catch up until next morning, when he could find me sleeping on top of him, or until he fell of the bed, because I had push him over the side to be able to lie more comfortably.

When my uncle started throwing me out of my bed, I decided to have two beds, one during the day, that was his bed - just after he leaves for work I climb to sleep until I hear someone coming (not in vain have I dog ears) - and another bed for the nights, and that of course is the chair mentioned above. Additionally I have a portable blanket, so that I can lie wherever I want to, without feeling cold.

Nowadays I have lots of friends with whom I like to play. We form a real gang, the neighborhood’s gang. We all get together in the park in front of my house. Some of my friends even come over to my house to look me up. They sit in front of the door and whimper a little to let me know they have arrived (some have even been able to train their masters to ring the bell so that my mommy knows it’s time to come and open the door for me), and of course I do the same thing. When mommy makes as if she hasn’t hear anything, I run to look for her, as soon as I find her, I start my “want to go out” dance, I start jumping as a spring on my four legs, higher every time, whimpering and crying and raising my ears, with my face full of excitement... And if she but winks an eye, I run desperately towards the door and there I wait for a couple of seconds to see if she is following me. The very few times that this doesn’t work, all I have to do is repeat the whole thing over again and of course I get her to move, pick her keys to open the gate, and out I speed to play with my friends. All one has to do is learn how to handle our masters. There is nothing better than a whimper, a dance or an undernourished, and forsaken look...

Sometimes mommy tries to resist, she says she is working and I must not interrupt her cause she is working to be able to feed me; she says things I don’t understand and that I don’t want to understand because that is what she is here for, to worry over me and see to my food and welfare. In the meantime I’m to busy trying to get out to play with my friends outside, or go out and mark my territory, since it is almost time for the neighborhood “girls” walk, or try to swallow one of those disgusting Yorkshires that live near by... I have to many important things on my mind to worry about mommy’s work.

So you see, I lead a true dog’s life.

Lima, 1994