Dog Gone

As most of you know I have been hanging around Key West for a while now, and somehow have been inspired to try and write. After all Hemingway wrote here, Tennessee Williams wrote here, Shel Silverstein wrote here, as well as a score of other poets, novelist, and newspaper men. So, why not the old Chief, after all I have written my fair share of fitness reports over the years, traveled around the world several times, spent time in war zones gaining a wealth of experiences along the way. Problem is I can't spell cat without spell check and my punctuation is not always the best, so if you grade my posts like my old English teachers, this exercise in blogging might not last too long. Another problem, I kind of like doing it anyway.

I was hanging out on Whitehead street the other day around the house where Ernie Hemingway lived and wrote. There is a damn lot of cats around that house. Legend has it that old Ernie loved cats and I am sure he did, I have seen the pictures. My wonderful wife loves cats too, we have six or so around our house up north, and I have learned to tolerate them and even kind of like a few of them (as long as they all stay outside), although not to the Hemingway level.

See I am a dog person. I love all kinds of dogs, mainly bird dogs, but in general all dogs. Another problem I have owned the largest collection of misfit dogs that the good lord ever made. I have tried to work with them, read books about them, became a disciple of the Dog Whisper, and yet I have still been reduced to tears over their behaviour.

Growing up we always had dogs, family dogs treated just like a member of the family. Hunting dogs that were probably smarter than I was. Where are those animals now? Oh we had the occasional nut case dog when I was growing up as well. I remember a Doberman named Gypsy that liked who liked to bite car tires, the problem there is she like to do it when the car was driving down the road. This eventually lead to her demise.

Now as an adult, we had a Golden Retriever mix that was a rescued dog who showed up when we bought the house up north. Any loud noise would cause the poor animal to wet herself, and she would howl at the moon like a wolf from a Jack London story, all night long. Then there was the Leopard Cur who was an escape artist. Spotty could jump a eight foot fence from standing flat footed on the ground. So we ran an electric fence wire around the top of the fence, he got shocked, and a pretty good jolt too, so the next time he looked at the fence twice and jumped higher. He never again came close to touching that wire.

Then there is the tale of the Welsh Terrorist, he came rescued from a puppy mill. He would never house break, even using all the Cesar Millan tricks, and then around $700 spent on one of the best dog trainers in North Florida. He was supposed to be a pure Welsh Terrier, but I am convinced his dad must have been a Tasmanian devil. Holding onto that dog was like holding a running twenty five horsepower out board motor not attached to a boat with one hand. Pure terrorist, he would also bite you in the blink of an eye then look you in the eyes tail wagging a hundred miles an hour.

So now here I sit in a small apartment with no room for a dog, and watch the descendants of Hemingway's cats live like the feline kings and queens that they are. In the meantime I ponder my failure as a dog owner. Another of my favorite writers, the late Gene Hill said " we never really own a dog as much as he owns us". I have been owned like one of Pharaohs slaves, yet I still hope some day to have the pleasure to co- exist peacefully with mans best friend.