Special Ingredients: Puppy Pandemonium

No, seriously I love these two idiots. I’ve always been a dog person. Growing up, we had a cocker spaniel named Buffy. Buffy was a good-natured dog who was mostly devoid of any actual personality. When she got excited, she would start nervously twitching her nub of a tail while whining in short, hyena-like bursts. This is about as active as I remember her, as she would mostly lumber around, knocking piles of newspapers down as she went. In her defense, every dog I’ve had does this, and one would think my mother, to whom the actual newspapers belong, would have caught on to this by now, so who really is the logically-challenged?

It’s not like Buffy didn’t have enough brain cells to absorb important information, though, like a helpful tidbit about how cars can kill you if you walk in front of them while they’re moving. she figured this out the hard way when I was about two after she wandered into the street and was hit by a car. I still have one of those displaced childhood memories of looking out the front door and saying “uh oh” for no discernable reason, though I remember it having something to do with noticing the dimples on my knuckles. Today, I think it was because I witness this scene and thankfully wasn’t able to absorb it outside of the fact I knew something bad had happened.

My mother quickly scooped her up and drove her to the vet, who managed to save her, allowing Buffy to live to the ripe old age of fourteen. This incident left her with a new-found loyalty to my mother, the knowledge that sticking around the house and away from the road was a solid course of action, and a permanent joint pain that flared up when she was touched a certain way on her hip, prompting her to commit the sole violent act of her life and bite me when I pushed her in the wrong spot.

When I was nine, my parents got a divorce, and my dad took Buffy with him. She lived another five years until she slowly went blind and couldn’t climb up the back porch anymore, at which point my dad decided to put her down. I really wasn’t as devastated as I should have been, probably because Buffy hadn’t lived with me for the last five years and I lost that special bond with her. Not that she had enough mental capacity to notice, but she was still a good dog.

After my dad left us dogless, my uncle Dale offered us a puppy from their litter. They ran a farm and kept around a dozen rat terriers at the time, and were willing to give up one of them as an early birthday present. I decided to name him after his father, and the newly-dubbed Sparky began his life with us, single-handily writing a dark chapter in our lives that would last five years.

Whether it was for a lack of discipline or some kind of chemical imbalance in his brain (and for the sake of ego, I opt for the second one), Sparky became the most vicious dog this planet had ever had stalking on its surface.

C suggests a third possible reason for this. When Sparky was a puppy, he was climbing down my grandmother’s back porch, and as I followed him, I tripped and landed on him, causing him to run around the yard yipping and dragging his butt on the ground. I firmly doubt this was the cause of his insanity. It was a malfunctioning brain. Yep, that’s the ticket…

Sparky was (likely literally) the dog from Hell. For no reason at all, he would charge at anyone and try to kill them. You wouldn’t think something the size of a gallon milk jug could be intimidating, but Sparky pulled it off, and adding food into the mix would increase the terror level proportionally to how tasty he found the food.

In addition to this, he would routinely relieve himself in the house, not because he didn’t know any better, but because to him, it was HIS HOUSE. To further prove my theory about his psychosis, he would routinely eat his own puke and occasionally eat his poop, usually with an expression of extreme disgust, but the little trooper would down that scat with every fiber of his being. We could usually get the crap away from him, but his upchuck was a different story; lord help you if you tried to take his precious vomit away from him.

I’ve since learned that some dogs will eat their deposits if they’re bored or to extract stray nutrients. I’ve never seen another dog do this until one of the new dogs picked up this habit, but when I reveal his genetic ingredients, you can feel free to draw your own conclusions.

Things got worse when Sparky developed and abscessed tooth, which dug into his muzzle and caused him to bleed and occasionally drip pus out of his skin as if to better disgust us. The pain made him even irratable, and one would think this would result in the police showing up at the house a week after no one had heard from us, only to discover the walls splashed with blood. Seconds later, they would be killed themselves, and Sparky would be set free to destroy the world.

So you could say he was a handful, and this probably leaves you with the question: “Why did you keep him? Why didn’t you take him to the vet to have him put down, or at least played a game of fetch with a lit stick of dynamite?”

That’s easy: because he would furiously shake it around and end up throwing it back at me. He did this once with an old shoe, letting go at just the right time to send it flying two feet over to the couch where I was laying and right into my eye. I’d be a fool to believe this was an accident.

Really, though, Sparky, as my mother put it, “wiggled his way into our hearts,” because there were times he was a friendly and cute dog, but that slowly faded away into the murkiness of evil. By the time it had gotten out of hand, neither of us had the courage to do anything about him. We were puppy whipped.

We got the abscessed tooth removed, and Sparky improved a little for a while. Around that time, we got Sandy, and Sparky seemed to take out some of his wickedness on her. I figured we could deal with him until a burglar broke in and shot Sparky while he was protecting us or a got us a suit of armor to wear around the house. You think I’m joking.

Then, in the spring of 1997, Sparky decided to climb up on the table and steal my mother’s lunch while she went to answer the phone. As he was gorging himself, my mother returned and yelled at him. This treachery enraged Sparky, who flew off the table and latched onto her hand, dealing her a deep wound in which she still bears the scars. This was the straw that was piled on the dozens of bushels that broke the camel’s back a long time ago.

I, oblivious to any sort of common sense, whined in defense of keeping a manically evil dog in the house. The best way I can explain it is Sparky was like an unruly child who abused us and angered us, but we still wanted him around in a vain hope he would mend his ways if we showed him enough love.

My mother could no longer wait for this miracle, and scheduled Sparky to be put down. Because he attacked her, we had to keep Sparky for a week to make sure he didn’t have rabies. No, I’m not making that one up. We had to keep a dangerous dog that has proven to have a complete disregard for human life in our home after a vicious attack to make sure he didn’t have a disease that would not only make him even more insane, but act as a poison to humans, not to mention Sandy, who served as Sparky’s personal chew toy from day one. The other option was to have Sparky’s head cut off and sent to a lab for rabies tests (I only assume they would have put him to sleep first). Even after all he had done to us, we couldn’t have him decapitated, though for safety measures, it would probably not have been a bad idea given how things turned out.

On a side note, C still jokes that if we had Sparky’s head cut off, they would send it back to us. Great friend, I know.

When it was time for Sparky’s execution, the vet gave him more than the required dosage of tranquilizer in hopes they could contain him (the vet actually hesitated to do with, but realized the final appointment was to kill him, so who really cares if he ODs on sleeping pills?). As if to stand as further evidence that Sparky was pure evil, he was not subdued by the tranquilizers and continued to lunge and attack right up until the end.

The thing is, we never saw the body, and considering how well the tranquilizers worked, I theorize Sparky might not be dead. For years, I imagine the vet bringing the needle of the deadly anesthesia towards Sparky, who required three assistants to keep pinned down. Suddenly, Sparky manages to fling the assistants one by one against the wall, and after freeing himself starts running along the walls, gaining speed and becoming an infernal blur. As soon as it all began, the blur disappears, and as the papers and other loose articles around the room settle and everyone gathers their thoughts, the vet notices a broken window, and realizes Sparky has been set free. He looks at the assistants, shrugs his shoulders, and says “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

This proved to be a fatal mistake, because the vet died almost a year later, dead from a heart attack. I believed Sparky is picking off people who crossed his path one by one, because he’s just evil that way, and it makes sense the person who tried to kill him get it first. The vet wouldn’t stand a chance against such rage. Sparky was probably the most vicious dog he had come across, having one time been forced to actually hang Sparky by his leash, and the dog still tried to kill him as he hanged by his neck, tongue turning blue. Just seeing this kind of visage show up in your window one night while you’re in bed would cause anyone’s heart to stop.

As for why I’m still alive, I think he’s now working in reverse, killing of people he met in his life from least significant to most, saving my mother and me for last. I’m still in touch with C, and I’m reasonably sure other people I know who’ve come in contact with him are still alive, so I should have more than enough padding before he finally comes by an

No, just kidding.

With Sparky gone, Sandy took over full-time dog duties, and proved to be the best dog in the world for twelve years before we were forced to put her down on December 26^th, 2007, because she was inflicted with melanoma that spread too quickly to treat. I’m not going to go into her story again, but needless to say there is a long article about her life that can be found here.

By the time February came around, I had grown accustomed to not having a dog in the house. Those phantom jingles of the collar and that eerie feeling when I was hit with the sudden realization there was no one in the house but me when my mother went out started to fade, I reconciled with the fact there were times when I would be completely alone at home. Throughout all of this, I knew I wanted to get another dog at some point, and while there were times this urge was strong, I never really gave it too much thought. I told my mother and Christy not to let me get another dog for a while, because it would just seem like a replacement.

Then my mother started searching rescue shelters online. One of my mother’s hang-ups is she rarely gets genuinely interested in new tasks, but rather becomes obsessed with them. When she started looking at dogs, she would spend literally an entire day on the computer in her room, looking at dogs, as if she was on the brink of discovering a diet cola that actually tasted like a beverage and not a stain removing agent.

Finally, after untold hours and a few attempts at contacting places, she announced she had made an appointment with a dog breeder located in a neighboring town. So one night after I was finished advising a club meeting at the college, I wearily drove to the breeder’s house, not really giving much thought to the situation, because I had just finished running a tournament for a bunch of gaming nerds, an experience best left to those assertive enough to weaken a customer before trying to sell a car to them until they’ll willingly sign their house away for the pleasure of driving a car twice the size of a Hot Wheel off the lot.

I pulled into the breeder’s driveway and waited for my mother to show up, which she did about fifteen minutes later, or ten minutes after I started seeming creepy for parking in their driveway without so much as leaving the car. We walked up to the porch and rang the doorbell, at which point I noticed a sticker on the door that read: “Warning: This property protected by our lord and savior Jesus Christ.” A wise man would have fled down the road and never looked back. I waited for someone to answer the door.

Fortunately, the person answering the door wasn’t trying to sell me Jesus or else. She was a pleasant woman named Leslie who had a passion for dogs, as demonstrated by our two hour conversation with her which I’m sure she appreciated as much as unhousebroken puppy. She was very patient with my mother and me, two strangers that must have come off as lonely social rejects who just wanted somebody to talk to. She only had it three-fourths right; I don’t really care if I talk to anybody or not.

Oh yeah, the dogs! Leslie had on hand a litter of Yorkshire terrier/Chihuahua mixes, a fact I would have appreciated had I actually listened to my mother with undivided attention. To me, this was the worst of both worlds. Like most people, I had Chihuahuas pegged as some sort of failed experiment of mating a hairless rat with a pug with an overactive yapping gene. I’ve always regarded Yorkies as mentally unstable wads of hair who were useless as dogs, but effective as a cheap dust mop if you had had a long enough stick to stab them with.

This was enforced by hanging around a friend’s house when I was younger, because his mother had an over-protective Yorkie who would fly across the room in a pathetic attempt to kill you, but instead would churn up a desire for you to punt it against the wall (we had a friend who tried this, and he was banished from the home and had all of his goodwill with the parents unceremoniously erased). I never had any personal experience with Chihuahuas, but they sort of reminded me of Sparky, which is never a good thing. Slap these two prime ingredients together, and I was positive you wouldn’t feed the resulting dish to imprisoned rapists.

And then Leslie brought out the puppies, and it was all over.

I don’t care how much of an emotional rock you think you are, if you have the slightest bit of humanity in you, you’ll melt the moment someone starts piling little furry puppies on you. If you don’t, you’re truly dead inside, and should considering a career in any military organization that puts you on the front lines or something in the entertainment industry. These puppies were also four-hundred dollars a pop, but just seeing them made me want to write a check for all of them.

During our verbal torment of Leslie, we found out her family was planning on moving, and wanted to get rid of the house quickly. I actually started making arrangements to put in an offer before I found something else the next day, but I told her half-jokingly part of the agreement was to leave the puppies. For more on my house-hunting adventure, check out this article.

The one everyone kept picking was named Lil Benji, after the father, and he was the only one of the litter to actually come up to us on his own. Of course, he was spoken for. My mother had a backup puppy, a multi-colored one named Dusty, but another one of the puppies in particular grow on me right away. When he laid down on my lap, he toppled on his back and dosed off, and I knew I had to have him, because “he knew how to chill.” His name was Logan.

We decided to sleep on it because of my mother’s appointment with a rescue shelter she had made that day even though she had an appointment with Leslie. I agreed to come back with Christy the next day during our lunch hour, because I wasn’t going to get a dog without her approval. She’s a cat person, and by law hates dogs, so I wasn’t going to inflect one on her, seeing as how we were getting a place together, without her seeing them first. As I pointed out in my humanity test, there was no way a person with a soul could escape the wrath of puppy cuteness, and cat-lover Christy, in a moment of weakness I’m sure she’ll never live down, wanted all of them.

At this point, I put down a two-hundred dollar deposit on Logan. Leslie had an entire operation for this, including spooky contracts wherein I probably reserved three major organs for her family to use. It was almost as much paperwork as buying a house, I would come to find. She was especially worried about me giving the puppy to my mother if I decided he wasn’t going to work out, going so far as to discourage the sale.

Awwwwwwww! If you don't want the entire batch of these, you're just dead inside...

This act gave me respect for her. Due to a miscommunication at some point, Leslie promised either Logan or Dusty to a woman who was really enthusiastic about the puppies. When the woman and her daughter got there and she witnessed how roughly the little girl was handling the puppies, she convinced her, with a consequence of tears, to not buy the puppy, because it wouldn’t be best for him. I think it made her way more credible as a breeder and as a human being.

With my deposit down, we went back to work. After the day was done, as I was driving home, I most likely played a scenario through my head which had run a few times before regarding this puppy situation. I imagined I would come home one day and there would be a strange dog running the house, because my mother would impulsively pick one up without telling me. I imagined going up to the puppy and saying “Hello, who are you?”

Sometimes it scares me when premonitions are right. I came home only to find a skittish puppy sheepishly exploring the house. I recited my line and looked to my mother for an explanation. She said she had to get him that day, or he might be adopted. Plus, she wasn’t willing to drive the hour plus it took to get to where he was staying again.

Meh.

The puppy’s given name was Nate, a black, white, and brown mix between (what we were told) a papillon and a rat terrier. Old war memories of Sparky rushed in at that point, but because the puppy had some other breed diluting the evil gene pool, I figured we were safe. He quickly proved to be a loving dog, though. His brother, named, I’m not kidding, Nard, apparently looked a lot like Sparky, so there was a worse offer on the table.

One bad thing about Nate was he had an eye infection that resulted in some unsightly drippage. This concerned us to the point where I decided to delay bringing Logan home until the vet gave the okay. After he was deemed not a biohazard, I went to get Logan, and then the fun began.

By that time, Nate had gotten used to the house enough to reveal his true nature as a perpetual source of energy, running around like a crazed rabbit on a never-ending quest to launch himself into another dimension.

I should point out when the vet saw that my mother had listed “papillon” on the form, he looked puzzled when he saw the actual dog, remarking “That isn’t a papillon, that looks like a border collie!”

A papillon weighs, on average, between three to nine pounds, whereas a border collie weighs between thirty to fifty. Even with the rat terrier genes, that still equals a fairly bulky dog. Although at this point, who’s to say if he is part rat terrier? He could be part elephant, for as accurate as his foster parent’s information seems to be.

Combine the drive of a squirrel on speed with the mass of two bowling balls taped together, and you have Nate.

So pretty much Logan’s first experience with Nate was being plowed into by the clinically insane mutt in an attempt to play. Having a dog that’s seven times bigger than another ram into it is bound to leave an impression. I’m just surprised it didn’t turn out to be a fatal one.

Fortunately for all involved, Logan figured out right away how to defend himself. There are few sights on the same level of entertainment as seeing the seventh-of-the-size David fly at the Goliath, ready to administer the bite of righteousness. Seriously, that little dog has some kick.

At this point, I’ll interrupt because it would be good for you, the reader, to be introduced to the dogs’ new names, because they’ll probably be sticking around for the next decade, and you’ll be hearing about them. Nate and Logan are all well and good, but my mother and I agreed we wanted to add our own touch to our dogs’ moniker-based destiny. At least I knew I was. What can I say? I’m humble like that.

My mother and I, as in most things, took completely different processes. Once again, she went into Obsessive Overdrive Mode and started scouring the internet for names. This search took days, with her shouting for me to come into her room only to ask if a generic dog name like “Pepper” sounded good. After a while, I told her I didn’t really care, because it was her dog and she should pick out the name on her own. In truth, I wanted to get back to playing Playstation.

Eventually, she decided on Dylan. While this doesn’t sound quite like a dog’s name, or the name of anyone from this planet, it fits the dog’s hyperactivity pretty well. It’s derived from Welsh and means “great rising tide,” which is perfect for him, because the damage he leaves behind is like that of the raw fury of the ocean.

I went a more concentrated route for my name search. Since I’m an anime nerd, I knew I needed to pick an anime-based name. While there were a few dogs in anime, I was drawing blanks with names, because I’m bad with names, I’m even worse with Japanese names, and you can just about forget me remembering the names of supporting animals. Actually, I can probably spout off more supporting animal names than supporting humans, because the animals are usually more appealing.

I decided to consult with my friend and fellow anime fan Kevin, who also loved dogs, so I figured he would have some ideas. Sadly, his idea well as pretty much lapped out, save for a decent name from a manga I never heard of. Out of ideas, I called up my other friend Bob, who is perhaps more dedicated to anime than I am, and figured he would have some insights.

He listed off a few generic Japanese dog names that I actually considered. It was only when he grunted in excitement and started laughing that I knew he had a good one. He told me he was going to call the dog this no matter what I decided, so I figured since he’s seeing the dog maybe once a year, I’d better take Bob’s advice to avoid confusion. From that day forward, Logan became officially known as Menchi.

It was a name so painfully obvious that it took the beast-like brain of Bob to figure it out. Menchi is a dog featured prominently in the anime Excel Saga, one of my favorites (though few anime aren’t), and exists solely as the main character’s emergency food supply. Menchi translates to “mince,” making my name just a little more disturbing than the name of my mother’s dog, which comes off as some Californian pretty boy who would eventually knock up some cheerleader and be forced into a minimum wage life in some trailer park where he would wind down the days of his gloomy existence with his best friend Jack Daniels.

Hey, inspiration speaks in different way to different people. It mostly prank calls me.

With the dogs named, it was time to start training. Specifically, it was time to toilet train them, a process that once it’s learned, it’s pretty hard to forget unless you become a US president or a CEO for a big company, then you have aids to take care of this sort of thing for you. The process is supposed to take less than two weeks. These two numbskulls have yet to allow the concept to sink in.

The problem is Dylan and Menchi have both decided to just do what the other one does, so the moment one dog wraps his mind around the concept, the other decides to rip it apart when he has to go and, what the hell, he might as well let loose here on this completed tax return. Or better yet, Menchi will go on a spot, and Dylan, not to be outdone, will add his finishing touches to the piece.

And there is no logic to the amount of their outputs. On many occasions, we’ll put them outside and watch them do their business (and you wonder why human intelligence has been on the down slope when we’re doing things like this), and ten minutes later, they’ll manage to grunt out several batches of both varieties, causing us to go through enough rolls of paper tolls to put some lucky paper towel manufacture’s kid through college.

But we dare not leave those paper towels out, or the Dysfunctional Duo will get them in their mischievous grasp and make the house look like Time Square after New Years. Menchi is more of the problem here, especially since his small size means he tends to rip off little, hard-to-gather pieces that look about the right size to him. He tries to clean up after himself, though, by eating the paper. I know this isn’t good for him, but if you know of a good way of trying to pry a gnat-sized piece of paper out of a thimble-sized mouth, I’d like to hear it.

Leash training is the other thing we’re working on. I didn’t use to take Sandy for many walks until a few years ago when I started enjoying taking an evening walk. While Sandy was pretty good on the leash, she would frequently pull and even attempt to go into a full run, as if she was trying to kill herself, but misunderstood the concept of hanging.

I wanted to make sure these two learned the ropes (ha!) as soon as possible. Menchi is the least interesting, as he’ll just follow me around for the most part. I can even let go of the leash and he’ll just struggle to keep up. I’m hoping he retains this dependency, but I doubt it.

Dylan, on the other hand, hated the leash from the word go. He would pull back and plant his butt firmly on the ground, a furry, immovable statue. It got worse when cars drove by, since he’s terrified of them, which isn’t nessisarily a bad thing. He generally displays a reluctance to leave the house, and we’re starting to believe he’s worried we’ll take him back where we got him.

He learned his lessons, however, and now has few problems on a leash. I end up forgetting he’s there most of the time. The problem is, these walks just don’t tire him out at all. In fact, it seems like he gathers energy from the sidewalk and unleashes (ha!) it when we get him home.

So far, both of them have displayed completely different personality traits. Dylan, as I have tried to impress upon, is powered by some kind of highly-advanced alien power source that’s run amok. He remains in some kind of motion, whether it involves leaping onto people with his dense twenty-plus pound girth like someone tossing a furry cannonball on you or constantly harassing Menchi to play with him after he’s through, usually resulting in the fury of a Yorkchi muzzle gripping down upon his face.

When Dylan’s fusion battery finally reaches a critical level or he can’t expel enough adrenaline through his slobber and it soaks into his brain, a switch flips in his head and he tears around the house with no discernable goal in mind. In this mode, he’ll run around the house, over chairs, and through people who aren’t quick enough to get out of the way. The frightening thing about this is Sparky used to do this, and we called it the “rompin’ rampage.” I’m just hoping this isn’t an indication of things to come.

He probably lies on his back and pretends to run while he’s asleep, but we’re usually so exhausted from dealing with him we sleep through it.

He likes to playfully nip, a behavior we’re trying to wean him of, lest history repeat itself. We’re not too concerned when he does that to Menchi, though, because this means they’re playing, which means they’re tiring themselves out, which is biting two birds with one chomp if you ask me.

He also figured out how to bark pretty quickly, a revelation that brings no end of joy to the household and the neighbors. As an added bonus, he’s big enough to get some power behind his voice, but not too big as to round our that shrill rat terrier pitch that inflicted ringing of the ear when Sparky perfected it fifteen years prior.

Despite the nipping, he is mostly bark and no bite. He’ll attack Menchi without issue, but he’s cautious around anything bigger than him. He’s weary of my dad’s dog, Wolfie, who is a one big walking clump of fear, and wouldn’t hurt anything. Loud noises and cars frighten to boldness out of him. The first time I used the vacuum, he cowered into a chair and peed himself, and it took me about a half hour of comforting him to get him back to normal. He acts tough with the family, but he’s as willing to take risks as a US congressman’s kid with a recruitment form in front of him.

While it may seems like Dylan is a pretty lousy dog (the conclusion Christy came up with), there are qualities about him that are enjoyable. He has a really friendly personality, and like everything else he does, he greets people enthusiastically, standing on his hind legs and openly trashing his front paws as if to give you a hug (I refer to this as a “Dilly Hug”). He also ends up in all kinds of weird poses that are endearing, as if to say “Look at me! I can be cute too!” He’s a loving dog, though hopefully he kicks his ten cups of coffee habit before Christy hurls him against the wall.

So that’s my mother’s dog, a mutt who we’re positive comes from a long line of effective energy drinks. What better human companion for the physical manifestation of a speed trip than a woman in her sixties who has had knee replacement, suffers from arthritis in every bone, and can’t get up without an hour’s preparation?

Menchi, on the other hand, takes a far more laid back approach to life. Sure, he’ll come flying at Dylan with his three pounds of Yorkchi fury to get the ball rolling. And he holds his own, giving Dylan a run for his biscuits and showing him he’s not some mop that lost its stick.

But once Menchi is done, he crawls into bed and flops. At this point, he’ll do whatever you want, as long as it involves laying around like a soggy loaf of bread. It’s usually at this time Dylan decides he wants to play some more, to which Menchi responds with a growl that’s about as intimidating as something the size of a wadded-up washcloth can muster, followed by a nip to the face. At first, we had a problem with him pulling this on us, but now he’s learned there’s no excuse for biting, unless it’s Dylan.

Combine this with a little white patch under his chin that looks like a beard, and I’ve since labeled him an old man. Without too much effort expended, he’ll lay back like the lazy bum he is, so he’s a perfect match for me.

His small size also creates some challenges. He can’t jump up any higher than a foot at this point, so he pretty much needs help up onto everything, though that’s not to say he’s not clever in getting down off of heights. We also have to keep an eye out for him so we don’t step or sit on him. I also have to watch him closely when I take him out for walks or let him outside (or have Dylan go with him), because he is but a Hostess Yorkchi cake to most predators out there.

Though his size does have its advantages when it comes to escaping from Dylan. Really, neither of them have yet grasped the concept of their size, but Menchi seems to realize his own limitations. We don’t see him plummet down from the bed; he usually finds a chair or something and climbs slowly down. That’s not to say he doesn’t occasionally swan dive off the porch.

In the times he gets into trouble, he cocks his head to the side a little and stares back at me with his little puppy eyes, essentially baptizing himself in his cuteness and washing away his sins. I swear he’s figured out he’s cute enough to get out of trouble and he uses this information to his full advantage. He’s starting to remind me of Nermal from the Garfield comic strip. Don’t me surprised if I mail him to Abu Dhabi.

Yeah, they look well-behaved in this picture, but in real life...

As I prepare to move out and split this pair apart, I can’t help but wonder what the future will hold for these two. Will Dylan ever calm down the energy levels of an exploding stick of dynamite? Will Menchi ever be able to jump up to anything more towering than a DVD player? These are just some of the questions I ponder as I write these words, wondering what the future holds for… hey! Menchi! Don’t you piddle on the floor! No! Bad dog! You do that out… no, Dylan! Don’t pee on that spot! Damn it! Where’s the Resolve and paper towels?!