Doggy Style (Or, Thank You for Your Useless Opinion)

Since I'm currently at a (huge, devastating, irredeemable) loss for words these days, I'm going to have to resort to a topic I've tried to steer clear of this past year: doggy talk.

Well, this isn't really going to be about squelching and squeezing and oohing and aahhing and aching and moaning and squealing like a bitch about how much I love my dog. Rather, this is going to be about the strange wonder he brings into my life on a daily basis.

By "strange wonder," I really mean "strangers that wonder and won't shut up."

For instance, Saturday night it was raining. I took Mr. B. for his usual late night poo/pee spin around the block. It wasn't raining hard at the time. Anyway, a gaggle of young queens stopped to say hello to Bobo and one of them thoughtfully interrogated me:

THE YOUNG AND THE TACTLESS: Why don't you have a coat for your dog? I mean, really. Don't you care about your dog?

ME: (through one mother of an extended eyeroll) No. I don't care about him. That's why I feed him and walk him and clean up his shit and spoil him. Because I don't care.

Of course that exchange was nothing compared to one I had at the end of August. Le chien had caught Bordatella (despite many expensive vaccinations) and was hacking nonstop. During a walk, an elderly woman (let's call her Miss Crazy Cracker) stopped me while Bobes was trying to eat a discarded chicken wing off the sidewalk.

MISS CRAZY CRACKER: You should really pay attention to your dog. He's choking on a chicken bone.

ME: No, it's not that. He has a cough.

MISS CC: No - he's choking! OH MY GOD HE'S CHOKING!

ME: No. He has a cough.

MISS CC: I see you don't care. Let me check his mouth.

ME: Uh...no. Thanks for your concern. But. Please. Continue. On. Your. Way.

MISS CC: HE'S CHOKING AND YOU DON'T CARE!

ME: Please leave us alone.

(At this point, most of lower Ninth Avenue is now watching our exchange).

MISS CC: PLEASE! He's CHOKING!

ME: Enough.

MISS CC: PEOPLE LIKE YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO HAVE DOGS!

ME: If you're such an expert, where's your dog?

MISS CC: He died last year.

ME: Clearly he must have died from annoyance.

A fountain of expletives then showered between us. I'm pretty sure I looked crazier than she did by the end of the tirade of F-bombs we shared.

Despite these types of situations, the good walking stories far outweigh the bad.

For instance, Bobo made friends with Ethan Hawke.

I gave him a spare poop bag.