In an attempt to explain the recent video post of myself making out with a boxer named Halle Berry, I confess that I've always liked dogs a whole lot more than I like people.
I don't know when my unnatural attachment to all things canine began. I do know that when other kids were running around Disneyland frenetically chasing after Mickey and Minnie, I was on a desperate hunt to find Pluto. Yes, Pluto - the oddly jaundice colored black olive nosed skinny rat tailed raggedly dog who had the IQ of a rock. When I finally found him, it was a day that all of my five year old dreams come true. I swear, if you look at the photo of Pluto and me, it was like I was Charlie who won the golden ticket to visit Willie Wonka. In other words, total ecstacy in a creepy way.
While other kids went home with their names embroidered on a pair of Mouse ears, I went home with a stuffed Pluto with a rubber face and a orange bib that said Pluto on it. I carried that everywhere, so much so that within a week, the rat tail deteriorated into bits of black fluff barely hanging onto some cheap wire and the shiny black nose was no longer shiny or black, resembling a beige bottle nipple instead of a spaniel snoot. That Pluto did not leave my side for years and much to my parents' horror, he was a presence at every family event we had (formal and informal) including my Uncle Kibo's wedding where I begged my Grandma to sew a matching outfit for Pluto and I. Perhaps that is the the moment when my obsession with drag queens began also.
Even now, decades later, although Pluto is pretty much a moth-eaten, termite doo-doo filled, deflated heap of material, I still have him on a shelf at my old bedroom at my parents' house. I wanted to bring him home to my house but the fear of my moth eaten, termite doo-doo filled, inflated heaps of real puppy dog would be tempted to drag the shreds of Pluto into the yard to "make it snow" outside. If you need a visual, just do a drive-by past my house and notice the fluffly white clouds of what used to be Mad Cow's penguin collection floating among the brown grass and petrified poop.
Part of me thinks that the reason I am so hopelessly devoted to dogs spring from my inability to have a pet of any sort when we lived with my Mom's parents. My Grandpa hated dogs from the top of his head to the bottom of his bottom. Let's just say getting bitten on the okole by a dog made him a mortal enemy of all things that went woof. Come to think of it, I don't ever recall him eating a hot dog or even a vienna sausage. So long as we lived with Grandma and Grandma, the chances of getting a dog were as good as Grandpa ever letting us ride our trikes from the driveway onto the sidewalk (in other words, nada, nada, nada). My pathetic little self would sit on the porch outside and look longingly at the people walking by with their pooches, dreaming of the day I too would have to carry plastic bags and pick up dookie on the way. I would also ask to visit any relative who had a dog and would cling to the often terrified dog like an opihi stuck on lava. There are photos of me sitting next to my Great Grandma - she and I are all smiles but her chihuahua who is tighly clutched in my arms looks as though someone has threatened to deport him back to Mexico. Raw, abject fear of a demented girl with a bust up Pluto coming at him with braids ablazing.
To overcompensate, I would watch every tv show that had a dog in it (Lassie, Dick Dastardly and Muttley, Huckleberry Hound and my favorite, the totally racist Hong Kong Phooey), make my parents take me to every movie about dogs (101 Dalmatians, Lady and Tramp but not ones where the dog dies), read every book about dogs (Incredible Journey, Sounder and I can recite Go Dog Go by heart) and of course, cry softly into Pluto's fluffly tummy, wishing that I would someday have a real dog. I think deep down inside, I was hoping that Jiminy Crickett would come by and with one wish, turn Pluto from a toy to a real dog like Pinnochio (yes, I was restricted to going to Disney movies by my folks).
We finally moved into our own house and day after day I would nag my parents to get a dog. It must have been totally irritating because one day, my dad walked into my Kindergarten class with a fluffly white bundle of fur. That was the day I took my first hit of puppy breath and it would remain my drug of choice until today.
This is why, the announcement of custody of the puppy mill dogs being awarded to the Hawaii Humane Society and being avaiable for adoption sent my family into battle mode, forcing them to plan a counter-attack to what will soon be a renewed daily whine to add a third Tiger to the already confusing Two Tiger family. Yes, I know that there will come a day when I will be featured on the show Animal Hoarding with my 300 very ugly dogs named Tiger and a few hairless guinea pigs but I just can't help it. They are just so doggone cute.
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