A Tail of Henry

Part 1: Who am I

My name is Henry. In Paris, my other home, it’s Henri but I prefer Henry. Less regal. Only Henry royalty here is Henry Ford and he was a fascist and Henry Fonda who wasn’t. And Henry Aaron who hit home runs. I am also not one of the Henry serial killers like Henry VIII or Henry Kissinger or the guy they made the movie about.

I’m a dog, a mix of poodle, bichon, and terrier. I weigh 19 pounds although I have heard comments that I look heavier these days. I have white curly hair. I am very cute. People stop all the time and smile when they see me. On a plane a Frenchwoman said, “He has face.” I’m 16 years young, oh I love those cliches. I have a couple of humans. I’ve had them long enough to name them. But what? Harvey and Camille.

I was ‘rescued’ by my humans. Originally, I’m a southern dog. My previous humans drove me from downtown Atlanta to the suburbs and left me. It was, I like to believe, due to the cost of two medical conditions they couldn’t afford.

I get along with most dogs, little ones, big ones — my favorite is a pit bull name of King. He still has balls but I’m his daddy. Black ones, brown ones, spotted and striped ones. Some of the dogs I know are assholes but calling them that is a problem when the first thing we do is sniff each other’s butts.

I have issues with some dogs: a miniature huskie named Bandit and a large huskie from the other side of the building. A small brown dog also from the other side, Pat’s dog and the one she had before, and Teddy, a pug and something mix who looks just like his human.

You wouldn’t know that the dog, that’s me, trying to break my leash and kill and eat those dogs, is me. I tolerate puppies well, am the greeter when I am at the vet, have a tail that wags so quickly it could launch a helicopter, and yet those dogs, all I see is red. Blood red.

My humans mean well. They could give me food from the table every now and then. I’m healthy, have all my teeth and had them cleaned once, ever. In Paris, ooo la la. My breath could use some freshener but why quibble. My hearing is not what it was but whose is?

Being 15 is not easy; as Bette the Beagle said, “it’s a bitch getting old.” I walk into a room and forget why I’m there. I know I went in for a reason but…Or I am going out and usually I jump up onto a chair for my leash to be put on and I just stare like “what am I doing here?”

I can no longer jump up onto their bed. One of the humans picks me up. As small as I am, I try to take up as much room as possible. Dogs have normal body temperatures of anywhere from 101 to 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s why we are not cold in cold weather. We are like hot water bottles. When I lean against one of them, they know I’m there. They like it in the winter but in the summer all they do is push me away. In the bed I’m like the crossbar of an H.

Part 2 Full Disclosure

The first thing to know about me is that I am a dog. Four paws, low to the ground. In telling my story I have one handicap: I can’t write. I’m unable to hold a pen or pencil in my paw and negotiate putting words on paper and my paws are too large to hit individual keys on the computer. You know what they saw about dogs with big paws.

That’s why I have a human. He is my amanuensis. A piece of information free of charge — an amanuensis is a scribe who first listened and then wrote down what he heard. Some scholars think that the first gospels were dictated to an amanuensis because Jesus spoke Aramaic, a language descended from Hebrew.

I can’t write but I can read. Yes, dogs can read. At different levels just like humans. This is not widely known so please keep it to yourself.

About my hearing. You’ll have to decide if I’m deaf or not but not hearing has its advantages. I don’t have to react to “Henry, come here,” “Henry eat,” Henry stop sniffing shit,” Henry, don’t rub your ass on the sheets,” and so much more. Did someone say something?

“Henry move over,” is one of my favorites. Since I don’t hear them say it, they have to move me themselves and I am always like a dead weight. Pick me up and my 19 pounds becomes 25.

Interlude

Why do dogs need licenses but cats don’t? Cats can’t drive.

Part 3 Getting It Out

I get carsick. When I met my humans, we drove from upstate New York back to the city. The car stopped and before I could even get out, I stared to vomit. I vomited so much on the floor and on the female human’s foot that I thought they might turn the car around and back we’d go. But no.

In Paris my first time we spent the day in a park with dog and human friends and then went to a dessert restaurant. Three courses of dessert — appetizer dessert, main course dessert, and dessert dessert. They were having a three-course dessert meal and all of a sudden puke, puke I did. Good thing they had finished their sweets.

Happy for them I seem to have outgrown my carsickness.

There are three ways to excrete, the three Ps: poop, piss, and puke. It has happened that I have done them in the apartment. Pooping, I go to the wood floor near the living room window and it’s easy to clean. Piss I’ve only done twice so no big deal. But puke, “oy” as I hear them say, now read their lips saying, I have no control over. I try to get off the bed but sometimes it just has to come out right now no waiting. The humans are never happy about that.

Part 4 Maybe True, Maybe Not

One time when I was still down south where I came from, I was with my then humans at a horse farm. I wandered into a stable and there were two stallions boasting to each other about their siring prowess.

One said “They pay $600,000 for me to cover their mares,” and the other said “I get paid $1,000,000 to do it.” I told them I do it for free because I like it.

The two horses looked at each other, amazed. “Holy shit,” said the first one. And the other said, “A fucking talking dog.”

Horses are so fucking stupid.

Part 5 Training Humans

“Sit.” “Give me your paw.” “Lie down.” “Roll over,” and so many more tricks humans think they teach us. Dogs let their humans think they are training us when the reality is the other way around. A little treat, a piece of dried liver or a biscuit and they think we will do anything for them. Shit.

The tricky part here is that I have to share my thoughts, my realities, with my amanuensis who is my human without his disclosing before publication.

The trick in training humans is they can’t know they are being trained. Fortunately, they aren’t smart enough to see it. They think all the things they do are their idea. LOL. It seems unfair sometimes but life is not easy and you have to take advantage. Need my belly scratched. Easy. Lay down beside them on my back and stick my legs up in the air and they think it’s so cute they scratch.

I love being scratched behind my ears. I walk up to one of them and bang his hand with my nose. I almost put my ear in his hands and he thinks it’s so cool that I know what I want he does it. Like taking a milk bone from a puppy.

I like being clean. Who doesn’t? She thinks I don’t want a bath. I make her find me to get me into the sink. Sometimes you have to prop up humans because they have issues.

When we go out for a walk I like to stop and sniff. A lot. It annoys my human because he’d rather keep walking and stop just every now and then. This is a conflict. At places I don’t care that much about I dig in but give up easily when he pulls but at spots, I really want to sniff the history of the spot I dig in, stiffen my legs, and take my time and he concedes.

I do lose here in terms of long walks. If I didn’t stop so much we’d go further. I’m like the scorpion that stings the frog in the middle of the river and they both die. In my case I don’t get what I want. It’s in my nature to sniff.

In the end, however, it’s all in the training.

Part 6 Things I Like To Do

I love running in the apartment. Running as fast as I can from the living room to the office and back and then back again stopping short, taking a breath and starting again. My humans love watching me run and get out of the way so my path is always clear.

Another of my favorite things and it makes my humans snarly is to be always in the way. One of them or both go into a small space and I am there so they can’t move without stepping over me. Or I sit or lay down in the entrance to the kitchen and again they have to step over. One of them will fall one day. And will blame me. I think I’m being a bit passive aggressive. No reason to be. Just being it.

Another is when they put their faces close to me is to lick their noses. Sometime I hit the trifectas — forehead, nose, and best of all their mouths. I love it when they say, “Ugh,” It doesn’t take a genius to keep your face away from a tongue. Just saying.

Part 7 That Deafness Thing

Turns out I’m not deaf. I went to the doctor, the humans call her a vet, and after looking in my ears she said the ear canal was narrowing and I had an infection. Medicine for the infection and steroids for the narrowing and now I have to fake not hearing.

Side effects of the steroid is drinking and peeing a lot and being hungry. I’ve peed on the bed twice and sometimes I pull like a sled dog to get outside before I pee. I don’t even wait to lift my leg but stand still and pee sometimes stepping in it after I’m finished which I never did before. I hear them talking about the future and will I stop peeing so much and not have the control I’ve always had or is this “a new phase.”

I am aging and my human isn’t doing so well with that either.

I am now on four meals a day. She thinks she gives me less but I’m getting more. Hope we can stick with that. I do a little dance, walk backwards, jump in the air, or pick up the she human’s flip flop and toss it in to the air, and it means one of two things to the humans: food or out. Even though the movements are distinct they don’t get it so I get both. They love when I do that; they think it’s funny. Maybe it is but I’m serious.

OK, I need both. Especially the going out. Used to be 7:30 out and that was it until the morning. Something changed in my system and I pee in the house and on the bed. The male human now takes me out at 10 or 11 which is hard on him because he wants to sleep. He’d rather stay awake then have pee on the bed but he has no patience with that last walk. Doesn’t let me stop and smell for long.

Man’s Best Friend

I don’t know where they got that from. I’m a dog. We don’t have friends, especially concerning humans. Humans have a purpose: to house us and to feed us. To reciprocate in the relationship we walk with them, let them pet us and make cutesy sounds at us, call us their “babies,” (I mean humans don’t give birth to puppies), and sometimes we protect them from other humans and from their own stupidities. We also have a calming effect especially when they are petting us. Chills them right out.

But friends? “Friends” was a tv show and there were no believable dog characters.

To quote an old dog, Groucho Marx, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

More health Issues

Since I last wrote, dictated, old age has struck. I was coughing with nothing coming up. Another visit to my doctor — if I was a human, I’d ask her out — and after pushing and poking I have a collapsed trachea common in older dogs. It won’t kill me but that expression “if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger” is just more human bullshit. They are so in denial.

The Future

I haven’t told this to many of my friends or humans but I have a dream. I want to be a stand up on all fours comedian. I want to tell stories and jokes and one barkers and be on television, maybe even a special on Netflix. I am very funny and somewhat risqué. Here’s an example:

How do you get a dog to stop humping your leg?

Give him a blow job.

The Future, Part II

Today, disturbance set in as I listened to my human talking to another human who has a dog about my age named London. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been here. He is not very friendly. Might be his small size and history before his human. She said London has been sundowning, a term that is common in nursing homes when humans at the beginning of evening start to go a little batshit.

My human started talking about me and London and I, even though I have a better personality, have been exhibiting a lot of the same behaviors. I’ve been sensing that something is different and now I’m worried. When I remember to be.

I’ve been having trouble holding my water lately. I sleep with my humans and even though they bought a protective blanket for the bed I found the place it wasn’t covering and peed. He especially, was not happy. He went online and ordered washable dog diapers and this morning we went to the dog store and got disposable ones until the others arrive. On the other hand, he wears pads so why can’t I?

Reprieve

We went to my doctor again last week. He said I still have a urinary tract infection, UTI for humans, and after a few days of the antibiotic things are back to normal. The human is happy because he doesn’t have to take me out at 11 at night. I’m happy because he doesn’t wake me up from a sound sleep to take me out. Win win. If he had been thinking we would have gone to the doctor before all the diaper ordering.

I have a heart murmur. I saw a movie with my humans called Murmur of the Heart, music by Charlie Parker. John Antici, don’t ask, said in a review “it’s about a boy who fucks his mother.” Humans aren’t supposed to do that. Dogs can.

That deaf thing again

I really can’t hear. Not a goddam thing. It used to be someone was at the door I’d hear them and bark their welcoming. Now nothing. I fell asleep and my human left and I didn’t know until I woke up and went looking for him. He was gone. I admit I was in denial but I have to face reality. If I couldn’t read his lips, I wouldn’t know what he was saying. Humans who know me still talk to me as if I am hearing them. Humans are in denial too.

Are there no hearing aids for dogs? If not, why not?

Actually, even though I know I’m deaf, dogs don’t have a clue about being deaf. We don’t know we can’t hear; we can’t hear and life goes on. It’s like a dog, not me, loses a leg and “ok,” not even that we now walk or run on three legs like it’s the way it is. We live in the present.

Back to my first future. I think I better get my stand-up career started before I forget all the punchlines.