I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship (2 page)

So, humor me.

I thought I'd get shot by a firing squad or something.

Here's a rule of non-opposable thumb: If you ever end up in a place with the word “shelter” in it, life's not going great for you. Like a bomb shelter. That's pretty bad. Or, if you're sheltered as a kid, and when you grow up you can't relate to the adult world. It's like how most men expect to have sex on the first date. You're kind of screwed there, too.

Most dogs don't care much about dying. We don't sit around fearing the end on a daily basis like humans do. You never see a dog with a cardboard sign hanging around his neck that says “The End Is Near.” The only end I want near . . . is a rear end. But when it's actually happening to you, I don't care if you're a dog or a bumblebee or a little cell inside a dumb fish, you won't want to die. Trust me, girl.

The biggest regret about my life is that I never felt like I was a part of anything. I always felt more like I was apart from everything. It's funny how “a part” and “apart” are complete opposites, yet only differ by a little space.

God, I'm deep.

My entire life I'd been passed around from one family to the next more times than the common cold. I've gone by a dozen different names, from Cinnamon to Escalade. It was a black family that named me Escalade. What a shocker. Nothing against black people, they just come up with really stupid names. I mean, white people are crazy, too. This one hick from Texas named me Booger. He would always try to feed me his boogers. What an a-hole. Right now, my name is Guinness. I hate that name, it sounds so pedestrian for a dog of my taste.

On the other paw, I guess it doesn't really matter what my name is. A name is just a sound that someone utters to get someone else to turn around. You could call me Litter Box Dump and I'd be fine with that. So, go off.

I suppose what this all adds up to is that I've never been a good enough dog to capture the heart of just one person who could love me forever. It's probably my fault.

In fact, somehow I've earned the reputation in the shelter world as being a “problem dog.” Please don't ever give a dog a reputation. It's a loser thing to do. We're just who we are.

We bark, we bite, we chew, and we shadoobie. So, get used to it. I don't really want to die, but it's not like I want to sit around the shelter and watch Cesar Millan on National Geographic for the rest of my life, either. I'm just a tail wagger on the red list, and there's only two ways off the red list. I either go home in a loving person's car or in a doggy bag. At least all dogs go to heaven, right?

And that's where my life got weird.

See, that should have been my last thought. All dogs go to heaven. I'd been rehearsing it for years. I should've been shot to sleep. Everything should've faded to black. The end.

But it wasn't.

There are a thousand dogs, in a thousand shelters, on a thousand different days. I don't know why she did, but she walked into mine. I felt like Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca
, and Chelsea was my sweet Ingrid Bergman. She was like a vision in faux blond strutting into that shelter, and she rescued me.

The first thing I did when I met Chelsea . . . I smelled her coslopus.

You can learn so much from smelling someone's crotch. Why do you think dogs always smell each other's assholes? It's instant knowledge. It's like everything that encompasses that person is downloaded right into your brain the instant you take a whiff.

Chelsea's coslopus smelled like a mystery. As I climbed into the back of her Jaguar, I didn't know where I was going or what was in store for my future. But I did think the backseat was a little tight. I didn't give two craps about it, though. I was just happy to be alive. I stuck my head out the window and let the salty Santa Monica air blow through my coat, and I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Now, just getting rescued is one thing. But getting rescued by a celebrity is like winning the lottery powerball scratcher mega millions jackpot bingo hole in one.

I went from the red list to the B-list in one day.

Well, maybe not the B-list, but at least the C-plus-list.

This type of rags-to-riches life has to happen to somebody, though. It made me feel like one of Brad and Angelina's adopted kids. Imagine that sense of surreal luck. You're living in Cambodia, and then one day Angelina Jolie swoops in and rescues you. It almost seems more miraculous than actually being one of their genetic offspring.

I'm like Chelsea's Maddox.

Thank God, she hated the name Guinness. And since Maddox was already taken, Chelsea looked at me and said, “I'm going to call you Chunk.”

As much as I love the sound of that, I try not getting too attached to my names. I mean, there's always that chance it won't last. I've had it happen a million times. I'm sitting at a shelter, and a little girl pleads, “Oh, Daddy, please can I have a puppy?! Pleeaaase can I have him?!”

The daddy begrudgingly agrees, but only after making his young daughter promise to take the dog on walks, and pick up the shadoobs, and do all the other hard work that goes along with having a dog.

Notice how I didn't say “owning” a dog. You don't “own” a dog. You “have” a dog. And the dog has you.

The problem is that one day that little girl gets bored with the dog, and she yearns for boys, and then she forgets about the dog. Shortly after that, her daddy gets tired of taking the dog on walks, and tired of feeding the dog, and that's how the dog ends up back in the shelter. I just don't want my relationship with Chelsea to end like that.

I remember seeing this old cartoon when I was a puppy. There are these two polar bears standing next to an igloo. One of the polar bears has just taken a bite out of the igloo, and he says:

“I love these things, they're crunchy on the outside, and chewy in the center.”

That's how I feel: a little icy on the outside, but soft at heart.

For a while after Chelsea took me home, I had a pretty bad case of the separation anxieties. To be honest, I've never been able to leave Chelsea's side. When she goes to the bathroom, I sit by the door. That goes for number ones and number twos. She once said that she'd never let a dog sleep in her bed. Well, guess where I sleep? I sleep in her bed. Sometimes I fart, and we laugh. I wag my tail to waft the stench around the room. Don't always assume that if a dog is wagging his tail that means he's happy to see you. A lot of times it just means he farted, or that he's giving you the finger.

If you're a fan of Chelsea's idiot-box television show called
Chelsea Lately
, then you've probably seen me wandering around the set from time to time. I'm practically quasi-famous. If only the mutts at the shelter could see me now. Soon, Chelsea and I will be moving into a big house, with a big backyard, and a big pool. I'd invite all the old dogs over if I knew where they were.

I can't believe it was just a year ago that I was supposed to be electrocuted in a little doggy electric chair. These days, I fly around the globe on private jets; I spend weekends with Chelsea's hot friend Jenny McCarthy. I even have my own Twitter page to vent my frustrations. You can follow me at @chunkhandler, by the way.

I mean, I'm living the life.

That got me thinking about this book, and why it was important that I contributed. All these people came together to write about how much they love their stupid mutts. Well, I think one mutt had to come forward and say how much we love you guys, too. We aren't very picky, either. You don't have to be a celebrity to win us over. Most of the time all we need is someone who talks to us, rubs our belly, and picks our poops off the ground. I realize that we're the dogs and you're the humans, and you literally rescued us. But remember that we all play our own part.

We all save each other.

Chelsea always said that she didn't want to be a mother. But whether she likes it or not, now she is a mother. She has a son, and my name is Chunk. And I finally feel like I'm not apart from everything, but I am a part of something greater than myself.

My name isn't just a sound that someone utters to get me to turn around anymore. My name is Chunk.

I am Chunk.

Now pardon me while I drop a shadoobie.

Dum-Diddle-Dum-Dum

Wade Rouse

“Sit!
Sit!
” the trainer screamed at me the second Saturday of puppy obedience class.

Since the six-foot-four woman made Xena the Warrior Princess look like Kate Moss and had the voice and decibel level of a cement mixer, I promptly took a seat on the floor next to twenty other puppies.

“
No!
Not you! Your dog!” she bellowed, nodding her Amazonsized head at our puppy, Marge, who was now sitting on my lap. “She isn't listening! You should have her hearing tested.”

I stood, handed my partner, Gary, the dog and the leash, and walked over to stand in Xena's shade. I motioned for her to lean down, and whispered into her elephant ear, “Her hearing is fine.
You're
not speaking her language.”

“Excuse me!” she yelled, so loudly, in fact, that her perfectly trained German shepherd, Hans—who, to this point, I had begun to believe was operated via remote control because he
never
moved without instruction—lifted his ears. “That'll be enough, Hans!” she yelled at the dog, who immediately bowed at her boots.

“You're not speaking Marge's language,” I whispered again, attempting to sound as rational as I could. “Or using the right voice.”

“What, exactly, is Marge's language? And voice?”

It was here that the Halti-dispensing behemoth smirked in my face, copping the same expression and tone that Eileen Brennan used in
Private Benjamin
the first time she saw Goldie Hawn in the army.

“Go on! Tell the class!” she said and motioned with her tree limb.

I turned to face roughly twenty other dog owners, all sucking down lattes in North Face jackets, and their puppies, outfitted in bright bandanas and expensive collars.

“Well, it's sort of a special lexicon that we've taught Marge.” I smiled creepily, as if I were standing in front of the judges in my Wow Wear performing my “Sassy Walk.” I smiled prettily, hoping these well-bred, by-the-book owners and pets might just suddenly forget what was happening.

“Go on!” barked the trainer.

And then, for the first time, just like she had hoped, I realized I had to explain this insanity to the world, retract the curtain and let everyone see that the wizard was actually Joaquin Phoenix, a mass of quirks and instability.

“Enlighten us!” Xena growled again, a mortified Hans seeming to smile at someone else's predicament.

So, I raised my voice roughly four octaves, and said as rationally as I could in my Alvin and the Chipmunks falsetto, “Margie! Itty-bitty-boo!”

The yuppie crowd doubled over in laughter, and applauded, like they were watching a seal perch a striped beach ball on its nose. But, above the din, our mutt, Marge—our little rescue Heinz 57, who fit in with these purebreds as much as me and Gary—did as instructed: She sat on my command.

“ ‘Itty-bitty-boo' means ‘sit'?” the trainer bellowed.

“Yes!” I said in my falsetto, before correcting myself. “Yes!”

“And how, pray tell, would you say ‘Come!'?” Xena asked.

“Dum-diddle-dum-dum, Margie!” I chimed.

And our reddish puppy—her giant paws still too big for her burgeoning frame—rushed over to me, dragging her leash.

It was then that the crowd took on a different emotion, a mix of enchantment and disbelief, like fanatics do when they discover the image of Jesus in a Pringle.

“Enough!” the trainer yelled. “You have spoiled your dog. She will learn the commands as taught—
the normal way
—like the rest of us. Everyone here speaks the same language. Marge, sit!”

Marge looked up at the trainer and barked.

“Marge, sit!”

Marge looked over at me and barked.

“Marge, sit!”

And, with that, Xena walked over, bent to the floor, and forced Marge to the ground, yelling, “Sit! Marge, sit!”

Marge battled her every inch of the way, finally succumbing with a sad yelp.

“She only understands simple, direct commands in a forceful tone,” the trainer barked at me. “Have a backbone. You must be the leader of the pack. She doesn't understand you. Say a simple, direct command in a forceful tone.”

“You're a Nazi bitch!” Gary suddenly said.

Cue crickets: Everyone stopped breathing, even the energetic puppies.

That command, it seemed, everyone understood.

“Let's go, Wade,” Gary yelled. “Marge! Dum-diddle-dum-dum !”

And, with that, our wacky little family left class.

On the drive home, as I nuzzled my mutt with the soulful brown eyes, thick auburn fur, a white stripe going up her nose like a highway divider, and the fuzziest ears I'd ever felt, I seriously wondered if we had jacked her up right out of the gate, if she would be a rotten baby, churlish teenager, spoiled, selfish adult.

Gary caught the look on my face, and said, “No one there spoke our language, Wade,” before inserting a CD of the musical
Chicago
, which he knew would make me smile. As we sang the lyrics to “All That Jazz”—“I'm gonna rouge my knees/And roll my stockings down”—
Bam! Bam!
—I began to think of the opening scene in
Terms of Endearment
, where a baby Debra Winger is sleeping soundly, and momma Shirley MacLaine isn't satisfied that her newborn daughter is okay until she pinches her, and the baby starts howling.