This work was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
I Call Your Name
by Jana Harris
Ali? It’s me, your toxic Mommy. I’m home, making unreasonable demands: Where are you? Upstairs? Why don’t you come down here to the kitchen? How come you just lie on our bed all day, looking depressed? You don’t even put your head up. You always get so excited when Daddy comes home. Me? Hardly an eye blink. Is it because I don’t slather your Milk-Bone treats with Skippy peanut butter? Or because I don’t carry a Ziploc bag of biscuits attached to my belt? (Daddy wouldn’t want to miss a teachable moment in your treat-training regime.) When will you admit that I never-never-never prioritize my wants over your basic needs, huh? When?
Ali? If you’re upstairs on the bed, I hope you’re not drooling on my pillow. You ought to get Daddy to take you to the vet. Maybe your gums need scaling, or there’s something wrong with your teeth. I can see why Daddy doesn’t want to put his hand in your mouth for a brushing; You’ve got Vampire fangs—so useful on Halloween—if only Daddy could decide on the perfect costume (lion, tiger, Lestat, Count Dracula?). Your lower incisors look crooked; maybe a doggy orthodontist could stop the drooling. Maybe, maybe, maybe; that’s how it is with you…
Ali! Daddy’s home from taking a load of trash to the dump!
Yeah, now you’re finally up, off the bed, thundering down the stairs, clogging the air with your piercing “outdoor” bark as if it’s a home invasion. Daddy! Call drool control. Ali, tell Daddy he needs to take you out to potty first thing, because you never wee-wee for me. It’s been eight hours. Tell Daddy you’ll get a bladder infection. No, no more biscuits. I just gave you one. Do you ever wonder what the Amazon driver thinks about delivering a ten-pound box of Milk-Bones to our front door every Monday? You’ve grown so large we have to buy kibble in bulk at the farm store every time we buy hay and horse chow.
Ali, ask Daddy which of your plush toys he just took to the dump. He told me that he was going to take a garbage-can full, but there’re still piles of stuffed animals in every corner, plus under the couch, the love seat, under the kitchen table, in the chairs, under the chairs–Hedgehog, Lama-lama-red-Pajama, Husky, Giraffe, Edward Bear, Growler Bear, Pooh Bear, Baby Hunny, Panda, Smokey; plus Fishy, Rhinoceros, Pegasus and countless mythics and prehistorics—Daddy wouldn’t take those to the dump, because anything with wings, horns, and scales might be one of your favorites. I don’t see Minnie Mouse, but here’s her little red shoe and her pink hair bow. Roo, but no Kanga. At least ten Eeyores, a couple of Piglets, Owl, and Rabbit. In my opinion, which, in your case, is usually disregarded, Daddy could have eighty-sixed a few more of the pastel Easter bunnies and red-and-green Christmas bears.
Okay, I confess; I try to suppress your negative emotional feelings. No angry snapping, no hysterical zoomies, no jumping up on ninety-year-old Mr. Swede, who lives two properties to the west of us and thinks it’s 1944 and that his father brought you home to wrangle the toms on his family’s turkey farm in Estacada, Oregon. No! Bad dog. Okay, I’ll admit to being a bit of a narcissist; can we just put our personality disorders aside and move on?
Ask Daddy when he’s going to do his share of the weekend’s dishes. He’s a great cook, but if he’s going to use every kettle, stirring spoon, mixing bowl, chopping board, and roasting pan, frankly, I’d rather eat cereal. And you love licking cereal bowls, don’t you? That’s why it’s your job to lick the pots, do you think that’s why Daddy uses so many? Maybe he could teach you how to stack them in the dishwasher when you’re finished. He’s always humble-bragging about your counter-surfing aptitude, how you can swipe anything that’s not locked up: loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, salami, and your favorite: butter—how gently you lift a quarter pound brick out of the glass dish and escort it to the living room rug. Way to go. Last night it was a plastic tidbit tray, mostly filled with pistachios, which you snagged off the counter and carried to the TV couch without dropping a single shell! Daddy claimed all bragging rights. So much praise, no wonder you don’t know right from wrong. And yeah, I agree, your glass is always half full; you relish a cereal bowl as much as the gravy pan. You’re a happy pet, despite killjoy Mommy who is always screaming unrealistic demands at you—stop shedding, stop barking, get off my side of the couch. What’s wrong with being controlling? What’s wrong with prioritizing my needs over yours? I’m not all bad. I would never tell you that you’re too fat because Daddy feeds you too much. I get it, fat-shaming is wrong, even though being overweight will take years off your life and leave Daddy a grieving hot mess. But seriously, no, I don’t wish you dead.
The problem—one of the problems—is that since you’ve grown so large, the three of us don’t fit in our queen-sized bed anymore. You always commandeer the middle, giving me the legs- and-claws side of you while you spoon with Daddy. Did Daddy think it was funny when I fell off the Sleep Comfort mattress, scratching my face on the floor lamp? He did. And why are you in our bed anyway? Because of your night terrors? And what is with your constant paw-licking? Is it compulsive grooming? An attempt at self-soothing, because toxic Mommy is always yelling at you that you’re not a cat and will you please quit it so that she can go to sleep? You do keep yourself pretty clean, I give you that. And you don’t give off a doggy aroma. Plus, as near as I can tell, you’re not harboring a foot fungus, like our horses or Daddy.
My god, will you stop running through the house barking? You’re louder than an air-raid siren. Of course there are deer out there. They’ve gown inured to you and most other dangers as well. Get down, will you please? That was a pristine cedar chest (not a single claw mark) until Daddy moved it in front of the living room window so that you wouldn’t go through the glass after the Amazon delivery person. Now it looks like something Daddy should take to the Goodwill the next time he goes shopping for your weekly stuffed toy. When I complain, Daddy’s comeback is that no one will ever rob us as long as Dogster is inside; she can be heard all the way out on the road. I’d have to say that Daddy and I think alike on that point.
Okay, Daddy decided: Since you’re your own unique canine self, i.e. special, there’s no need for a Halloween costume this year. Just saying, I think Ali would make a pretty good bear, if he changes his mind. Or a vampire. For my edification, Daddy outlines his decision-making process: we (meaning me) need to stop imposing our expectations on you and let you be who you truly are. Further, we (again meaning me) have set unattainably high standards for you, which is why you are always falling short. When I argue that other dogs can learn to come, stay, lie down, fetch, heel, Daddy counters with, you are not other dogs. And after all, he tells me, hasn’t Ali learned to sit for a biscuit? And beg, I add; Ali, you are very good at begging; a real drama queen, you throw your entire hundred-pounds into it: Drool, paw, moan, and when that fails, huff. Don’t think I haven’t noticed: Lately you’ve added huffing to your begging toolbox. Okay, so Daddy scores a point, you’re not completely unteachable. Where does that leave us? Because we can’t teach you to live life on our terms, we should live on yours? Embrace you’re journey to self-discovery, really? I have no idea where that leaves us, because Daddy won’t answer me. He’s too busy doting on you playing bite-and-chew with your Jesus-Loves-Me musical lamb, one of the too-many that survived the cut.
So Ali, do you think Daddy’s serious? After dinner, when I bring two biscotti on a plate to the TV couch for dessert, he wants me to add a size medium Milk-Bone frosted with low sodium gluten-free creamy Skippy peanut butter.
Okay then. Coming right up. Ali, please ask Daddy if you’d like a white doily on that plate.
Jana Harris teaches creative writing at the U of Washington and at the Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. She is editor and founder of Switched-on Gutenberg. Her most recent publications include: You Haven’t Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore; Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier (U of Alaska Press) and the memoir, Horses Never Lie About Love (Simon & Schuster).
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