My Dog is David Carradine

It was so hot outside yesterday the dog threw up. He's not very sage and tends to push the limits. He runs back and forth in the yard chasing cars and people and babies and rabbits and birds and whatever else comes into his line of sight, without a second thought that "gee... I'm wearing a fur coat." I read somewhere recently that the average dog is about as smart as the average two year old. If this is true then it must be one horny two year old. Because my dog thinks about sex. A lot. His walks aren't really walks. They are "dog on a mission" romps through the neighborhood. He leaves pee-mail at every sign, bush, and leg, marking his territory with rabid need for recognition. He smells the responses with equal fierceness, gleaning... I assume... the threats from the male dogs, and the come-ons from the bitches. I can almost read the responses by watching him. Wary and bristling when it is a male. Torqued out of his mind when it is a female. I usually narrate with an X-rated version of Doug, the dog from "Up!".

We bought him a special collar so he wouldn't crush his own larynx during his walks. Regular choker collars have one band the constricts when the dog pulls. The special one was invented by some dog guy near us that has two bands, and thus spreads the choking out over his entire neck, not just his windpipe. But we have the auto-erotic asphyxiation dog from hell. When he is chasing tale, he pulls without letting up until he is literally laying in the middle of the street gasping for air. People give us the "you are a bad person" look, like we are abusing him. I cheerfully wave. They slam their doors and dead bolt them. But I know they have closets hidden away with whips and chains in them.

Having never actually caught up with the bitch that left him the pee-mail... the horny dog turns to other sources of entertainment. My youngest daughter was the easiest target for awhile until he got the message loud and clear from the alpha dog that this was not kosher. Thus he transferred his lust to what we refer to as his "humpy blanket". It is soft and blue and when you play tug of war he gets aroused. "What is that red thing sticking out?" my daughter asked. Much amusement followed. For a few days. Now it just grosses the women of the house out to no end. The men still find it funny, of course.

Dogs are incapable of growing past this phase. They are unapologetic about their boners and sex toys, even if the women find it gross.

And while I realize that many men are equally unapologetic and incapable of growing out of this phase, I am not one of them. I am overly apologetic, if that is possible. But I wonder at times if the reason I like the dog so much is because of that unapologetic attitude. That go for broke until you are left panting and wheezing in the middle of the street chasing after someone. The higher brain tells me that this is gross and base. But there is some part of all of us that recognizes it for what it is. Primal lust. We want to lust. We want to be lusted after. But instead we slam the doors and hide away our needs in closets filled with whips and chains, pretending that it is all some vial practice that is below us.