Dogmatic Traditions
Glimpse Into The Life of an Idiot And His Idiot Dog
As a godless thirty-year-old who lives 3,000 miles from his family, I don’t have many traditions. Heck, I once ate pizza on Thanksgiving. PIZZA! I’m a bit of a rebel like that. Also, I’ll basically eat pizza whenever humanly possible.
But one tradition that I take part in everyday is walking my idiot dog. Like all good traditions, this one was forced upon me by loved ones.
It all started about four years ago when my girlfriend found the website puppyfinder.com. If you live with your girlfriend, you should secretly buy Net Nanny and block this domain from your household right now. Trust me: it’s better to find “Fun ways to cheat on your boyfriend” or “How do I join ISIS?” in your girlfriend’s search history than “Puppyfinder.com.”
The site essentially finds adorable puppies for you to adopt. Obviously within moments of surfing this site, my girlfriend pitched the idea of us adopting a big-eyed Boston Terrier. I explained to her that, although I love dogs, I wasn’t ready for that level of responsibility.
Everyone knows that in loving, equal relationships, it’s important to respect one another’s boundaries and that big decisions should always be made together. So naturally, my girlfriend waited till I went to the bathroom to pee and bought the dog anyway.
We got Dexter from a breeder in Utah. And yeah, I know that it’s wrong to buy from breeders and that I should have gotten a rescue dog. But the way I see it, Dexter really is a rescue dog, just instead of rescuing him from a shelter, we “rescued” him from an awful, boring life in Utah. I don’t know if any of you have ever been to Utah (maybe your car broke down on your way to Vegas), but it’s terrible. They named their basketball team the Jazz! “Other teams will be intimidated by our use of improvisation and discordant polyrhythms!” I had to get Dexter out of there.
Four years have passed since my rescue mission, and walking Dexter everyday is now my tradition. For the most part, Dexter is a very well-behaved dog and I love walking him. Someone once told me they saw him try to bite a kid on a skateboard, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t true. I mean, Dexter doesn’t even own a skateboard.
I spend a lot of time just watching Dexter during our walks. I imagine the sidewalk is like Facebook for dogs. Think about it: dogs use their sense of scent like we use our sight. Through scent, a dog can tell another dog’s gender, age, diet, health, sexual activity, and probably whether or not they do CrossFit.
So as we begin our walk, Dexter feverishly smells places where other dogs have pissed, much in the same way I eagerly jump from page to page on Facebook. Every block or so, Dexter pees on top of another dog’s pee, and I imagine this is like commenting on someone else’s post. Sometimes another dog greets us on the path, and this is the dog equivalent to receiving a direct message.
Dexter usually loves this DM’ing, unless the dog we see is Rex. Rex is an energetic Golden Retriever who bounces all over Dexter like a college Lacrosse player hopped up on molly.
Please note: This dog’s name has been changed to protect his identity. His real name is actually Ocho, not Rex.
Dexter and I also encounter other people on our walks. I have met and connected with so many interesting types of people since I started walking Dexter, but my favorite is the young guy clearly walking his girlfriend’s small dog.
Now, I have never been to war. Unfortunately I was not allowed to join the army because I have a unique medical condition where I am deathly allergic to being shot with bullets. Being shot with even one bullet could actually kill me! Doctors call it “being a coward.” But I’ve seen soldiers talk about an unspoken bond with their fellow countrymen and I think something similar happens among defeated young men walking small canines. I could be a block away from a fellow small dog walker, but without fail we will lift our heads, lock eyes for a split second, and exchange a look that says, “We are still men…We are still men.” Then we will scoop up our respective piles of tiny dog shit and shuffle along.
We are one, guy in a hoodie with a pomeranian. We are one.
As a godless thirty-year-old who lives 3,000 miles from his family, I don’t have many traditions. Heck, I once ate pizza on Thanksgiving. PIZZA! I’m a bit of a rebel like that. Also, I’ll basically eat pizza whenever humanly possible.
But one tradition that I take part in everyday is walking my idiot dog. Like all good traditions, this one was forced upon me by loved ones.
It all started about four years ago when my girlfriend found the website puppyfinder.com. If you live with your girlfriend, you should secretly buy Net Nanny and block this domain from your household right now. Trust me: it’s better to find “Fun ways to cheat on your boyfriend” or “How do I join ISIS?” in your girlfriend’s search history than “Puppyfinder.com.”
The site essentially finds adorable puppies for you to adopt. Obviously within moments of surfing this site, my girlfriend pitched the idea of us adopting a big-eyed Boston Terrier. I explained to her that, although I love dogs, I wasn’t ready for that level of responsibility.
Everyone knows that in loving, equal relationships, it’s important to respect one another’s boundaries and that big decisions should always be made together. So naturally, my girlfriend waited till I went to the bathroom to pee and bought the dog anyway.
We got Dexter from a breeder in Utah. And yeah, I know that it’s wrong to buy from breeders and that I should have gotten a rescue dog. But the way I see it, Dexter really is a rescue dog, just instead of rescuing him from a shelter, we “rescued” him from an awful, boring life in Utah. I don’t know if any of you have ever been to Utah (maybe your car broke down on your way to Vegas), but it’s terrible. They named their basketball team the Jazz! “Other teams will be intimidated by our use of improvisation and discordant polyrhythms!” I had to get Dexter out of there.
Four years have passed since my rescue mission, and walking Dexter everyday is now my tradition. For the most part, Dexter is a very well-behaved dog and I love walking him. Someone once told me they saw him try to bite a kid on a skateboard, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t true. I mean, Dexter doesn’t even own a skateboard.
I spend a lot of time just watching Dexter during our walks. I imagine the sidewalk is like Facebook for dogs. Think about it: dogs use their sense of scent like we use our sight. Through scent, a dog can tell another dog’s gender, age, diet, health, sexual activity, and probably whether or not they do CrossFit.
So as we begin our walk, Dexter feverishly smells places where other dogs have pissed, much in the same way I eagerly jump from page to page on Facebook. Every block or so, Dexter pees on top of another dog’s pee, and I imagine this is like commenting on someone else’s post. Sometimes another dog greets us on the path, and this is the dog equivalent to receiving a direct message.
Dexter usually loves this DM’ing, unless the dog we see is Rex. Rex is an energetic Golden Retriever who bounces all over Dexter like a college Lacrosse player hopped up on molly.
Please note: This dog’s name has been changed to protect his identity. His real name is actually Ocho, not Rex.
Dexter and I also encounter other people on our walks. I have met and connected with so many interesting types of people since I started walking Dexter, but my favorite is the young guy clearly walking his girlfriend’s small dog.
Now, I have never been to war. Unfortunately I was not allowed to join the army because I have a unique medical condition where I am deathly allergic to being shot with bullets. Being shot with even one bullet could actually kill me! Doctors call it “being a coward.” But I've seen soldiers talk about an unspoken bond with their fellow countrymen and I think something similar happens among defeated young men walking small canines. I could be a block away from a fellow small dog walker, but without fail we will lift our heads, lock eyes for a split second, and exchange a look that says, “We are still men…We are still men.” Then we will scoop up our respective piles of tiny dog shit and shuffle along.
We are one, guy in a hoodie with a pomeranian. We are one.