Our friends came to visit. They had to carry their dog in a handbag, because pets aren't allowed in our building. The carpet is allergic to them. The dog stays quiet, zippered in the dark, until they open the bag. Then it leaps out in a flurry of misdirected energy and goes nuts.

This dog is quite something to see. It's a purebred Maltese puppy, possibly from the Paris Hilton accessory line, which weighs about three pounds. It doesn't look so much like a dog as a small energetic bundle of candy floss. In fact, it rather reminds me of a pair of slippers my grandmother had when I was growing up, but with a heart rate of about a thousand. It's so gormless, we get concerned it might decide to launch itself off of the balcony. If you were hungry enough you could make about 2.5 burgers and rug out of it, but the rug would be so small it'd only be useful to another Maltese. Apparently it likes to provoke animals twenty times its own mass at the park, so if it's going to become lunch it'll probably be for another dog.

If the dog's mother reads this, I will be ended. She has long since grown weary of jokes which compare her pet to fluffy inanimate objects, weary to the point of violence. But I firmly believe that's what you should expect if you insist on owning a dog that looks like a Flemish rabbit.

By contrast, our other friends have a Mastiff puppy crossed with a... well, a horse, I think. He weights one hundred pounds. When he's done baking he'll be 220, like his dad, whom children used to ride at birthday parties. The Maltese could take a nap in this dog's mouth. His jowls are now so heavy they pull his eyebrow skin down over his eyes. His dog door is more or less the lower half of a regular door. He absorbs most of the living room and all of the protein in their tiny house. When Sandie took him out for a walk, he knocked her to the ground and dragged her fifty yards along the street by the leash, which was wrapped around her wrist, while chasing another dog, possibly a Maltese. I am not making this up. She ruined a $300 jacket and went to the hospital with a concussion.

When I make casual observations about her pet's resemblance to large, unpredictable violent objects, she just nods ruefully. It's what you should expect if you own a dog roughly the mass of a polar bear.

Walking an animal bigger than you is for lion tamers and zookeepers. Do not try it at home.

Posted by: andre at August 19, 2005 10:57 AM

Posted by: TJ at August 26, 2005 07:33 AM

All Content (except your comments) ©2003, 2004, 2005 Human Cargo.
All rights reserved. Watch yourself.

Backend by Movable Type v3.15.