When this prompt came out on Monday, my rhythm was off. Zac picked me up at my house on his way home from drill, so I had all my electronics with me, I just forgot to charge my keyboard. Therefore, I should have been writing on the train, and couldn’t. Then, when I got home, I started doing other things and still forgot to charge my keyboard. I remembered at about 6:00 PM that I still hadn’t written anything, then again, got busy doing something else. I didn’t look at the clock again until 1:15 AM, and there went my perfect “Bloguary” streak.

I feel bad about it, but not too bad. This is because the whole point of “Bloguary” is to get you used to posting every single day. The streak before this was something like 63 days, and I think this was 88. Therefore, I think I already have the rhythm of posting every day down. I don’t have to beat myself up because I missed one day due to complete burnout, because that’s what was driving all my demand avoidance. Plus, the prompt just isn’t perfect for me because I don’t have a pet.

I asked Zac if I could write about Oliver, who is a dog. Oliver is the only dog I really spend any time with…. but again, not my dog. So, because I’ve written about Oliver before, I’m going to write about some things I wish all of the dogs I’ve had in my life could have understood.

The biggest fuck up I’ve ever had with a pet, I wish I could have apologized to him for the rest of his life…. and believe me, I tried. In my 20s, I had a blind dog named Geoffrey, and I lived on the second floor of an apartment building. Geoff was a beagle, and he was just small enough to fit through the bars on the deck and didn’t wait for me to guide him to the stairs. Therefore, he hung himself on his leash and I had no idea what the fuck to do. I couldn’t drop him, and I couldn’t run around and get him, either, because in order to do that, I’d have to drop him.

I also couldn’t get a frightened blind dog to let me guide him back through the bars because it was a tight fit on the way out. I have no idea what possessed Geoffrey to have a wild streak like that, but I wish I could have made him understood my panic. That I was not trying to hurt him, and I didn’t mean to let him hang there one second longer than he had to so I could rescue him.

I tried to lower him down to the sidewalk, but the leash wasn’t long enough. I just had to attach his leash to something on the porch and run as fast as I could to get him, at which he deservedly shat all over me. Because Geoff was so docile, him going through the railing upstairs was something we did not anticipate. We’d already had him for years (this is when I was with Kathleen).

For 20-odd years I’ve carried around the guilt of watching my dog suffer and being absolutely helpless for enough seconds that both mine and my dog’s life flashed before my eyes.

I would have liked to be able to say to each other that we were both terrified, and I’m so glad he’s okay, and I’ll watch more carefully. I couldn’t apologize in words, but I was a much better owner after that. Geoffrey was special needs, and I only took my eye off the ball for less than a second.

If I’m having a nightmare, though, I still see my dog hanging by his leash off the second story.

Before Kathleen and I got Geoffrey, we had a little Dachshund/Rat Terrier cross that came with the name “Betty Boop.” We didn’t like the “Boop” so much, but Betty fit her perfectly. She was noble, nose pointed in the air, the Dame Maggie Smith in our house. She was also loved and adored by all our friends, mostly because she was small and well-behaved.

My mother was not a big fan of pets. We didn’t really have them growing up, and she never got any of her own after we moved out. However, Betty won her over when I was having some problems with my car and both my mother and Betty were with me in the mechanic’s shop. Betty quietly sat in my arms like a baby the entire time, and my mother was amazed. She thought I was a magnificent dog trainer. I think Betty was just as bored as I was and it was better to have a place to fall asleep than not.

Dana and I had a dog together once, but it was a snow job from our friend Daniel, who had to leave for the UK immediately and needed a place for his dog to live until he got back. He gave us money for her care, and then never came back. The money ran out, and we couldn’t afford to keep her. We returned her to Daniel’s ex, and told him we were sorry, but he wasn’t here. The money that he gave us was supposed to last a few months, but we had her a year and Daniel had no plans of moving back.

So, he reneged on a deal and got angry at us, despite a very long time of no contact while we were telling him we couldn’t afford his dog and he either needed to pay up or we’d need to rehome her…… no contact right up until “what the fuck? My ex just called me and says she has the dog?” Maybe you should have opened your messages three or four months ago, Daniel.

We were line cooks making eight bucks an hour. He was a producer at the BBC. It wasn’t like we were trying to shake him down for money, and he knew it. He was just irresponsible all the way around with his dog, why he got the “fuck around and find out” tax, not because we didn’t love the dog. We’d have kept her on our own, but we didn’t have German Shepard money. Even if you feed them crap food (which I wouldn’t do, just saying) you have to buy so much of it for that size dog that it’s unsustainable, like trying to pay for child care on that type salary.

So, I wish I could have gotten Willow to understand that we loved her, we just couldn’t keep her. That we both have great memories of her. My two are that for some reason, she loved Tootsie Pops. I found this out because so do I, and I used to buy them several bags at a time at Dollar Tree, because they always had the banana ones and no one else did…. oh, and the vanilla ones on Fourth of July. I came home one day to a bag and like, 30 sticks.

We took her to the vet immediately, but the vet said she’d be fine because the chocolate content wasn’t high enough to poison her. However, I did learn that my vice was her vice, and it was a spiritual bond. My other favorite story is regarding Dana and Willow. We were both talking about how nice it was to have a dog, because when we didn’t have each other to run errands, we didn’t feel alone if she was in the car. Then Dana says, “plus, it’s fun to play ‘punch Buggy’ with her because she never hits back.” I said, “Dana… :::blink, sigh::: have you been beating our dog?” We both laughed until we were in tears.

I’ve had some great dog experiences in my life, but if I had a chance to get Asher, my soul cat, to understand something, it’s that I’m sorry I didn’t understand the signs of her illness and didn’t take her to the doctor until it was too late. She only lived 10 years because she went into liver failure and I couldn’t tell. By the time we got to the vet, the vet said that there was nothing we could do but keep her comfortable, so I chose to put her down. It was either that, or watch her slowly deteriorate and never recover. I did not want that for either of us.

Asher and I had a special bond because I’d just gotten my own apartment and I really didn’t have many friends (I normally don’t, I’m kind of a homebody). Basically, Asher moved in when I needed someone to be home the most. She had a great personality, and everyone I’ve ever loved has loved her, too.

None more than my ex Angela, who once stuck her finger up my nose at 5:30 AM to wake me up, supposedly as a joke. It would have been hilarious if Asher hadn’t learned that it worked so well; she stuck one claw up my nose at 5:30 in the morning for the rest of our relationship. She wanted breakfast, and let me assure you there is no snooze button on that particular alarm.

The reason I call Asher my soul cat is that she seemed to understand me in a way that my other pets didn’t. Maybe it’s because we spent so much time alone together, maybe just her natural rhythm… but she became very territorial over me and would pee on the guest bed (while the guests were in it) to ensure they didn’t come back. That was her room, not theirs.

I was mortified at having to change the sheets in the middle of the night, etc., and I was mystified because she had never misbehaved before. What I did learn is that 91% alcohol will destroy the smell and that Nature’s Miracle is a lie they tell little kids. I mean, it works when you’re shampooing your carpet, but you’ll never destroy enough biologicals with it to keep your pet from marking again…. and even alcohol doesn’t work every time. It’s just the only way I’ve found to rescue clothes, sheets, etc. You can’t really spot treat carpet for cat pee because it gets into the pad.

When I’ve had pets, I’ve also had the $300 steam cleaner because not being able to get down to the pad underneath the carpet is what causes most of the smell.

And in fact, I could have a cat in my room if I wanted it, but I don’t. I can’t think of anything worse than having to share one room with a cat. They would be perfectly happy, but I wouldn’t because of the smell of the litter box. I throw up enough due to my psych meds.

I could get another dog on my own, because picking up poop from the backyard after it’s dry is a whole other thing from cleaning a litter box, as is carrying bags on a walk. There is something about cat pee that triggers my vomit reflex immediately, probably the ammonia.

I want to wait until I have a nesting partner to get another cat, because I cannot handle cleaning litter boxes and I will do a shit ton of other chores to pay someone back for doing that one. With Dana, it was relatively easy. I complained to her that I couldn’t clean the cat box because it made me nauseous. She didn’t believe me, so once I did it in front of her and she relented when I vomited all over everywhere.

When it was just me and Asher, I got her stacks of disposable pans that were foil so they were cheap, and threw them away every day. I never once scooped anything, because I’m incapable. I found a way to work around it.

I do want another cat eventually, and I have said for a number of years (since I got Asher, actually) that it will be a ginger Maine Coon boy named “Pentecost” so his nickname can be “Flamer.” That’s because Asher’s full name was “Ash Wednesday.”

Even though she made me understand that she was Jewish, but only after I had her blessed at an Episcopal church. Her timing was always off, because after a while, pets begin to take after their owners. In some ways, their owners begin to take after their pets.

This morning, I woke up at 0530 all on my own.

All the pets that I’ve owned are now dead, so perhaps maybe the energy I’ve put out into the world about them can be received because our languages are no longer different- they’re both energy. So, to the dogs I wish I could make understand, and the cats as well, it’s how big a role they had in shaping the way I love, and how grateful I am for that gift.

Maybe not so much Asher. That claw thing, tho.