Demon Dog
Let’s be clear about one thing right from the start, Kim and I both love Buddy and think that he is an incredibly cute pup that we are thrilled to have as part of our lives for a long time. That all said, Buddy has more than a little of the Devil possessing him at certain times. I’m actually quite serious about this and while I am not a particularly religious person nor a superstitious one prone to thinking about things like demonic possession in people or animals, I am at a loss to explain the transformation that occurs in Buddy at certain times. But one look into Buddy’s red/orange iridescent eyes when he gets into a state and you too would start to research the history of demonic possession in small domestic animals. I have always thought that cats were the most likely household pets to be prone to demonic ways. Their eyes are a serious starting point with that glassy and soulless way about them. Is there anything quite as spooky as a cat’s eye? Their indifference and “cattiness” give them a air that has always struck me as other-worldly. That seems simply to be a manner that felines of all types enjoy and that has allowed them to survive in the wild. But dogs have waggy tails and bouncy personalities that can’t compare to cats.
We joke that Buddy (the pup previously known as Beaux Cartier) was the result of an elderly Republican household that was both in denial about the facts of dog nature and convinced that they were stable geniuses when it came to training dogs. After all, they had had success with their previous pooches, Louis Vuitton and Gucci Poochie and everyone in MAGA land knows that the gold-gilded lifestyle leads to greatness and managerial excellence, right? But then, after twelve months of unmanageability that they hinted involved Buddy not doing well with children and not being a calm lap dog,
M left them where Trump-loving Republicans will eventually find themselves…wondering what in the world they were thinking that they could house-train this nasty self-centered beast. Eventually, they gave up and decided that discretion is the better part of valor and rehoming him was a necessity. That translates into, getting him the hell away from them and pretending for the sake of their dog-loving conscience that they wanted him to have a good home where he would not be beaten. They pleaded repeatedly that they wanted assurances that we would not hit him. That strange request can only come from people who must have wanted desperately to beat him for his evil ways, but could not do so in good conscience. After all, Buddy was the victim here, right? The world was apparently against Buddy even though he was living in the lap of luxury. If that doesn’t complete the Trumpian analogy I don’t know what does. So, we rescued Buddy from all that.
Kim has a fundamental belief in life that extends well past Buddy. She believes that with enough love and kindness, any dog (or probably human for that matter) can be redeemed and fixed. It worked with Cecil. It worked with Betty. Many think it worked with me. So, since day one, Kim has tried to hug the bad things out of Buddy. That’s fairly easy to do since he is a very cute 5.5 pound bundle of brown furry fluff. But that is simply not how Buddy imagines himself. He has the ultimate little guy complex and the Poodle in him (he is 100% pure-bred, genetically narrowed, high-strung toy poodle…and probably the runt of his litter at that). Buddy has absolutely no intention of going through life being the cute little guy with the perky prance and the floppy ears that gets hugged and cuddled by every passerby. He has probably been manhandled into a very dark place for a proud though diminutive dog that wants to be the leader of the pack despite and maybe even because he is so small. It is a testament to Kim’s maternal ways that Buddy is totally committed to her and she may be the only person who can and does hug him without getting her face bitten. But Buddy has drawn the line on getting cuddled right there.
I am convinced that Buddy likes having me around quite a bit. Betty liked me for my food. Cecil tolerated me because he had no choice, but was constantly hoping I would go away for good. But Buddy needs a sparing partner and Kim will only do battle with him so much. He knows he can count on me to be the alpha male whenever he wants to sharpen his alpha skills. I actually think I am important to him and he is glad to see me when I get home, something I never really felt with either Betty or Cecil without ulterior motive like treats. Buddy is not a food-centric dog, probably because he has always been well cared for and doesn’t need much to fuel his 5.5 pounds. But Buddy has a 100 pound ego and the smarts to go with it.
Buddy learns commands very quickly and is an ace student in each and every training session that he has. It’s almost as though he goes through whatever catechism that is given to him and he wonders if that is the best you got. But the training (which yesterday lasted 90 minutes) also wears him out and when he gets tired, there’s the opening for Satan to get in. You can actually almost see it happen. He goes from this AM fun and bubbly puppy that frolics around the house with playful intentions into this purposeful and determined troublemaker that is just looking for ways to get mad and lash out.
I remember in my old banking days that we had a friend in the bank who’s father was a Southern preacher. This guy’s son was a real Dennis the Menace apparently (I never met the kid, but we heard the stories every day) that was plaguing my friend and his wife. They were real God-fearing people who had trouble understanding what to do about their child. One day, after an incident, the man sat his son down and asked him why he had done whatever mischievous thing he had done. The kid was old enough to have gone to Sunday School for some time and the answer he gave was that, in all ernestness, the only reason he could come up with was the Devil made him do it. This really sent the preacher’s son into a quandary because he was a true believer, but he had trouble relating his son’s mischievousness to some Biblical phenomenon. I remember him telling us and sort of rhetorically asking if we thought that was possible. We all quietly understood his spiritual conundrum and had all see The Exorcist, so we just kept quiet.
Kim is taking on the role of Exorcist in this story. She fearlessly confronts the demon in Buddy when it surfaces and growls in tongues at us. Last night after she had banished him from the sofa twice for lashing out at me for simply moving my hand or some such thing (he doesn’t bite, but he certainly does startle), he started snarling at me from his bed on the floor (a full 10 feet away from me). Kim wasn’t having it and she got up and berated him not to act that way and started to grab him up into her arms. What ensued was best described as a cat fight between them with Kim unflinchingly finally prevailing and getting him in her arms. I was amazed at her tenacity and decided right then never to get in a fight with her. She then sat on the sofa and cooed soothingly to him to calm him down. I literally stared into his red eyes and watched the red recede as the demon in him slipped away in her arms. I don’t know where the devil goes, but at a mere 5.5 pounds, what I do know is that while he is Demon Dog, Buddy is pound for pound a match for any dog on the planet.