I was up late working on my finances (insert sarcastic laugh at the word ‘finances’). One of the piles were the bills for BuKi, my Chinese Crested, who is diabetic, blind, arthritic, suffering from Canine Cognitive Disorder (doggie Alzheimer’s), and prone to infections of the anal glands (don’t ask), and ears. The breed has notoriously soft teeth, too. So much so that they are the only breed I know of who can be missing teeth and still qualify in dog shows. She’s had extensive dental work that includes four root canals.
I added up what I’ve spent to support the cur this year, and it came to over four thousand dollars.
Four thousand dollars.
I looked down at her. She was, as usual, staring up at me, creeping me out. “I want to tell you something I’ve kept from you, Princess PooHeinie SquatsALot. Do you know how you came to be my dog? Lemme tell you the story…”
When I was a teen, my mother decided that it was time to teach me the responsibility of caring for another living creature, and that a dog would be the perfect gift for me at Christmas that year. She went looking for a dog she thought I’d like, and found out about Chinese Cresteds. They were quite rare then, and very expensive, but she thought they were adorable, and knew I’d love their quirky, Dr. Seuss-like appearance.
She found a breeder. Looking at all of the dogs available, she was trying to decide when she noticed one that the breeder hadn’t presented as being for sale. This dog was BuKi. She was the runt of the litter – underweight, even more slight of frame than the breed is naturally – and they had already tattooed a fancy ‘UFB’ on her tiny belly. Unfit For Breeding. They weren’t going to sell her because they hadn’t deemed her worthy.
Of course, my mother not only fell in love, but the idea of getting a bargain appealed to her. She managed to talk the breeder into selling BuKi for the lower sum of six hundred dollars (the others were going for twice as much), and walked away with the breeder still apologizing to her for accepting her money for such a puny beast.
“That’s right, sport – you are a bargain basement dog. A downtown dog from an uptown breed. I didn’t want you to ever find that out, but…I want you to suffer a little after looking over all the money that you, a bargain!, have cost me.” She continued looking at me, and burped. She burps at me a lot. I suspect it’s her way of telling me I’m full of hot air. “And what do you do for me? I’ve spent half of my life with you, and I do not recall you ever – not once – rubbing my belly or preparing my dinner. You have never stood beside me in the freezing rain waiting while I pooped so you could pick it up in a ridiculous, little bag. You haven’t even applied antibiotic ointment to my anal glands, and let me tell you how disgusting THAT is, chickadee.”
“What you HAVE done is cost me a ton of green. You’ve dragged me on walks in the middle of the night. You’ve turned your nose up at the dinners I give you. You’ve puked on everything I own, I think. You’ve barked in my ear while I was in the middle of a dead sleep just to wake me up and rub your tummy. On top of all that, you get under the covers in my bed at night and fart like a maniac (it’s awful, it really is – I keep a can of Febreze Extra Strength on my bedside stand). You are a thoroughly useless and problematic creature, and I am going to make slippers out of you, I am.” She yawned, turned in a circle, sat down in exactly the same place, and stared on.
I went back to working out a budget for the coming year. A little later, I feel a very delicate, nearly not there, touch on my leg. I look down and she is holding out one paw, barely brushing against me. This is her asking me to, please, pick me up – do you mind? – it’s time for me to be held now.
I do so. She likes being held in my arms like a baby while I swivel in my chair. She snuggles into me, and sighs. In a few minutes, she goes utterly limp as she falls asleep. She trusts me. She knows I’ll never hurt her, never drop her, will take care of her…and this goes directly to my withered, blackened heart.
I’m being held hostage by a farting bit of fluff.
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