Memoir Monday: Dog Cruelty 101

6^th September 2010

Memoir Monday

Dog Cruelty 101

A few weeks ago my brother and I walked into Melo (the pet store). Instantly we walked to the back. (Where the dogs were). There were five dogs: a Labrador (a big, lumbering annoying thing), a Chihuahua (a yappy rat with Doritos for ears), two Maltese (best dog breed EVER!) and a cocker spaniel. This memoir is about my family taking care of a cocker spaniel…and failing. It is about me realizing that my family (mainly my brother) sucks at having dogs.

My mum’s friend Juliet and her family were going on vacation to England and they trusted us to look after their cocker spaniel – Merlin for four long weeks. He was a little bundle of annoyance and golden fur. Juliet lived in a house, so Merlin was used to doing poops on the grass. The balcony for some reason wasn’t good enough for him, but bedroom floors were. We would take him for four walks a day, and yet he managed to leaves all turds inside. Quite and achievement I must admit. As if that wasn’t annoying enough, every night at seven he would go crazy. It was almost as if he found my secret stash of red bull…just kidding, but he did go crazy every night.

During these moments of insanity, he would run around, bark and wipe his skid-mark coated butt all over our pillows. Lucky me. After a few days my mum was sick of waking up to a nice sea view and a crap covered nose. His big, puppy eyes weren’t enough to compensate for the fact that we were nose deep in dog feces while we slept.

One night, Charlie, mum and I were all sitting on Mums bed watching T.V. and enjoying the poo-free sheets. We had decided that this was the night that Merlin would stay on the ground, along with his skid mark coated butt. Somebody had to take a stand, somebody had to say enough. Merlin cockily walked through the door with a look of defiance on his face, looking certain that his behind and the pillow would be meeting up as usual tonight.

“Positions!” My mum shouted, we all dispersed and manned our positions with military precision. We had trained for this night…oh we had trained. Our brief was under NO circumstances let the mutt butt-wipe the pillows. I took the south…the end of the bed if you want to get all technical about it. Charlie covered the east and my mum took the west. Unfortunately for Charlie, Merlin thought that he would pick off the youngest of the gang…big mistake. Merlin made eye contact with all three of us. The stare off lasted five long seconds before he was activated. He charged at the bed, as fast as he could.

“Charlie! You can take him!” I shouted. Merlin leaped into the air like a cheetah about to kill its prey. In this case the prey being a freshly washed, plumped-up pillow. Charlie rose to his feet, you could almost see the words: ‘not on my watch’ in his eyes. Time slowed down, I could see the pillow in Merlin’s eyes, he had an itch and a clean pillow was the only thing was the only thing that could satisfy him. Merlin was air-bound, with butt-wipe determination in his eyes. Charlie drew back his fist, charging up power. My mum screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Her face looked resigned for another night of skid-marks. Charlie’s fist shot out, Merlin was still flying towards it. Finally, it happened. They made contact. Charlie fist hit Merlin right on the nose.

The mutt was sent flying across the room, after five feet of air he hit the ground with a thud. Nobody could quite believe what had happened, including Merlin. He slid across the tile floor and silently rose to his feet. We were filled with mixed emotions, one side said, ‘Charlie just punched a dog in the face’, the other side said ‘YAY! Clean pillows.”

Merlin silently left the room, he had been defeated. The humans had won. We celebrated with cans of coke and a big bag of cheetos, this was a momentous occasion. My mum vowed that we would never dog sit again, and I realized that my little brother wasn’t quiet ready for a dog yet.

This was a true story, Merlin made a full recovery and is now living on a farm in England for six months of quarantine before he can happily move on to Australia we his family are residing. Thanks for reading…and comment or else Charlie will punch you in the face.