Adventures with Mr. Z

I am going to tell you about my dog. But bear with me, it is not that kind of dog story; I promise it will not leave you feeling fuzzy and sentimental and faintly nauseated, like you had just read a Mitch Albom book. I am telling you about my dog because my dog is cool.

Let me introduce him briefly. Mr. Z (his stage name) is, to put it succinctly, a big dog. Last time he went to the vet for an unspeakable problem involving his digestive system, he weighed 79.7 pounds. He would have weighed 80, but the other three-tenths of a pound was vomited all over the CDs. He is half German Shepherd and half Husky, and, although he has one scary ice-blue Husky eye, his other eye is fully German-Shepherd brown. Genetics split him down the middle. This means that one side prefers seal and the other, wienerschnitzel. However, both sides are generally disappointed because all they are offered is dog kibble in various shades of brown. Mr. Z's hobbies are shedding, snorting, and snacking out of the cat box. On occasion, he will take in a session of crotch-sniffing. He is fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. He enjoys jokes that reference his species. His favorite one is, "What did the dyslexic agnostic insomniac do at night? He stayed up and doubted the existence of dog." He told me that this joke is paw-pular among his friends.

Mr. Z also has some annoying habits. For instance, he is overly concerned about my weight. I know this because every time the delivery guy comes, which, you know, is not that often, when you think about the ratio of the number of delivery meals to the number of days in a year times three meals a day (you figure it out; see prior post re: learning disability, anyway, it's a big number), he barks and growls maniacally and lunges at the door. I know that he is simply trying to prevent me from consuming large amounts of cheesy bread given my propensity to gain weight quickly, but sometimes, it seems like he's trying to maul the terrified driver. After the driver leaves, Mr. Z reiterates his concern by nosing up to the coffee table and eating my pizza off of my plate while I'm distracted by Gilmore Girls. Plus, he occasionally pees on the floor, and sometimes, when I'm crying, instead of comforting me and offering me his furry body in which to nestle, he sneezes in my face. Life with Mr. Z is not always a walk in the park.

But, walk in the park we must. An average walk with Mr. Z requires a 25-minute constitutional around the neighborhood, with plenty of opportunity for adventures, mishaps, and mayhem along the way. Mr. Z is oblivious to his freaky appearance, but when he is on a walk, he has an effect on young and old alike. Invariably, small children see him and squeal, "Look! Look mommy! Look at the big dog! He has one blue eye!" The fascination is cross-cultural. Small Latino children have been heard to say, "Mama! Mama! Mira el perro grande! Mira el ojo azul!" This can be roughly translated to mean, "Mother, my dominant paradigm of symmetrical ocular appearance has been subverted! I am frightened! Please buy me a Slurpee." Adolescent boys, posturing as tough as they must in a rough-ish neighborhood, stalk down the street, arms taut and muscular by their sides, fists pulled. But the second they see Mr. Z, their eyes widen and they withdraw slightly in fear and astonishment. When I say, "Don't worry, he's nice," they retort, "I wasn't afraid!" But I know better, and I hope they'll tell their rough-ish friends to leave me the hell alone on my evening trip to the bodega for some barbecue chips and Fanta.

I'm sure I could sic Mr. Z on them, but I'm not sure if Mr. Z will sic. He is a fairly passive dog. One cannot play tug-of-war with him, because when you tug back, he gives you his end of the rope, as if to say, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were playing with that. Here, take it. I'll have my turn later." I was actually disappointed in him one day when my cat hissed at him, and Mr. Z, I swear to you, swatted at the cat. It was so weak, and such un-big-dog-like behavior that I almost sent him to his bed for being a traitor to his kind. Later, I tried to train him in Growling and Snapping, but he would only give the desired response for Snausages and hugs.

One cold day last winter, I was accompanying Mr. Z on his afternoon walk. The requisite activities had taken place: he had peed all over a variety of bushes, poles, and other upright objects (I love it when he pees on fire hydrants; it's like he's fulfilling some sort of cultural role), scared several mothers with small babies (which is just stupid; he only enjoys babies covered in ketchup), and acted like he didn't know what I was talking about when I admonished him for squatting on someone's lawn. I picked up his poop with the plastic sleeve the newspaper comes in and mused about how sacks of shit really do steam. Walks with Mr. Z are always a learning experience. One time, he taught me, by attempting to take a piss on it, that Mercedes Benz SUVs are ostentatious.

On the way back, he sniffed the ground in about 700 places, which I allowed him to do; after all, he was just reading his pee-mail. After one such sniff, he peed on the spot he had found so interesting, and then turned around and sniffed the same spot where he had just peed. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was; maybe he was spell-checking? Then we had our usual run-in with the woman who lets her cats outside to roam free, yet gets upset with me when Mr. Z barks at them. Generally, she admonishes me with, "That was another close call!" and I respond by walking away and flipping her off over my shoulder. During all of this, I was still encumbered with the steaming sack of shit, because I had not yet encountered a trash can. We had just about gotten home when Mr. Z decided that he would like to scratch his back on a hollyhock bush. The bush happened to be at the edge of a yard, but he wasn't doing any damage, not even trying to pee on it, so I let him go for it. He enjoys scratching his back on conifers, mostly, but on occasion he will go in for a member of the genus Alcea.

Mr. Z was smiling his dog smile and enjoying the feel of a particularly spiky leaf when I heard a shout: "Get that dog off of Barbara's lawn!" I looked up, and a man in his 60s was standing on the stoop of a neighboring house. I ignored him. He shouted again, "Get that dog off of Barbara's lawn! Don't you let that dog crap all over Barbara's lawn!" I ignored him again, because Mr. Z was not on Barbara's lawn; he was simply enjoying her shrubbery. "YOUNG LADY!" he shouted. "If you let that dog crap on Barbara's lawn, I'm going to call Barbara!" I finally responded. "Go ahead and call Barbara! And while you're at it, why don't you continue acting as a living stereotype of an old man, shaking your fist and shouting 'You kids get off my lawn!'" At this, the man stifled a smile, but continued shouting. "I SAID, get that dog off of Barbara's lawn!" By this point, Mr. Z was nowhere near the lawn, but was inspecting a McDonald's wrapper about five feet down the sidewalk. Realizing that he had lost, but feeling as though he needed to continue the discourse so that I may receive my comeuppance, he began shouting across the way: "BARBARA! BARBARA! There's a dog out here crapping on your lawn!" Barbara did not appear. I suspect that Barbara wouldn't have even given a shit, no pun intended, because her car's vanity license plate said "C'est la vie," with an apostrophe carefully entered in Sharpie between the C and the E. Her apparent dedication to this philosophy may have been why she did not come to the door to witness a dog not shitting on her lawn. However, the man continued to yell at me repetitiously about crap and Barbara and lawns. Finally, I shouted at him, "Listen. My dog is not going to shit on Barbara's lawn. He has already gone, and I have a fucking steaming sack of shit here to prove it." I wielded the bag high in front of me. Yet, the man insisted on repeating his declarations. I wondered if he had a string in his back and if this was maybe an old man version of a Chatty Cathy doll. Finally, I threatened to come up his stoop and shove the steaming sack of shit right in his face if he didn't shut up. This did not deter him. I stood my ground. We glowered at one another. He decided that he needed to get in one last word, "Young lady, you watch your language," he admonished. "I ain't no lady," I growled, and headed towards our yard, far away from Barbara and her non-shat-upon lawn. The Guardian of Barbara's Lawn went back into his house to, I imagine, finish watching Oprah and gum a zwieback.

Sometimes Mr. Z comes back into the house after a walk looking depressed because his outdoor adventure has ended until the next walk. When that happens, I give him a big spoonful of peanut butter, which entertains him for the next half hour as he attempts to get it unstuck from the roof of his mouth. Sometimes he glares at me while he's painstakingly licking his peanut buttery chops, as though I have played a mean trick on him. I remind him that sometimes, life just hands you a steaming sack of shit, and as long as you're not on Barbara's lawn, that's okay.