spoiled

I know Nutwit has a point.

I’ve become a creature of habit, spoiled after a stretch of being my own dog. For a long time, I was Bob the beast, cunning and streetwise.

As a stray, I lived off leftovers at the mall while Snickers dined on her fancy-pants kibble. Man, how I loved that cotton candy stuck to the floor. The unexpected UFOs. The ends of ketchup-covered hot dogs, scattered under the bleachers like, I dunno, big toes or something.

Ivan offered to share his gorilla food with me, and Stella and Ruby were always ready to pass along a carrot or an apple. But I refused. I needed to stay in shape, stay tough, stay true to my wild nature.

Okay, so maybe every now and then I’d sneak a banana chunk from Ivan’s breakfast.

But then things changed. I became civilized. Domesticated. A pet.

Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely some perks. Julia, who’s an artist, painted my name on a food bowl. She gave me this wonderfully mushy blanket, the kind where you can bed boogie forever till it’s squished to perfection and you can curl up just so.

I love that blanket. But I simply cannot sleep without Not-Tag, Ivan’s raggedy old toy gorilla.

Course, just when I get my blanket and Not-Tag imprinted with the right amount of Eau de Bob, Julia’s mom does the unthinkable. Puts them in the washing machine and removes every last bit of . . . me.

There are other indignities I tolerate.

The daily walk on a tug-of-war string, after going stringless my whole life.

The attempts to train me. Like that’ll ever happen.

The kisses and cuddling.

Well, the cuddling’s okay, I s’pose.

But the kissing I just don’t get. If you wanna kiss your dog, why not just give him a big old lick on the face and be done with it?

Anyways. So what if I’ve gotten a little spoiled? A tad soft around the edges?

There’s a difference between being soft and being afraid. Being a coward.