Sluggo

My name is Sluggo and I'm a bad dog.

I wasn't always bad. I and my five siblings were born good, suckled lovingly, and nurtured with exercise and play. When my owner picked me out, he was picking out a good boy. A good dog. And then we got home.

No way.

Everything about the place pissed me off. It was in the air. I sniffed and tasted the bad vibes. Then I found out the problem. A cat. A goddamned cat. From the moment I laid eyes on this vicious, heartless beast, I was mired in hate. And frustration. Cats have a way of playing only those two cards--hate and frustration.

From time to time I'd think my problem was over, for no one knew where the cat had gone. They suspected she was just pulling one of her mysterious disappearing acts, only to return unannounced with the sound of the can opener. She came back. My problem wasn't over, apparently. At least I still had my balls.

Cats are incorrigible, disrespectful, and just plain mean. I'd walk by and I'd get strafed by a pawful of claw in a rapidly delivered series of surgical strikes on my head. For her, it only took ten seconds, but that's like seventy for me. (We dogs life in a quantum world of time dilation.)

Don't even get me started on the litter box. I'm an outside waste engineer, spinning around, just so, to find the right electromagnetic synchrony with true North, then kicking up a sediment layer to cover it. OK, maybe not completely, but I try. I use the whole damn yard. She uses a square foot of pumice that reeks of some rank perfume worse than the catshit it's designed to mask.

Then, salvation! It doesn't take much for Man's best friend.

At least I thought so. Going bye-bye. Going for a ride. In the car. All words I knew well; all words that reflexly forced my head to tilt in recognition. But it was a dirty trick. I had been hauled off to get my testicles whacked off. I didn't understand the rationale, exactly, but I think it had something to do with my aggression toward that stupid cat.

Yes, I returned ball-less, with an empty sack, sans my caninity. Imagine the humiliation. I could neither father progeny nor stride proudly a'swingin'. The cat knew. She knew before it happened. She could have warned me. But she just laughed when I returned. I would saunter by, as freshly neutered, yet sentient, beings will. And again, she'd deliver her minute (my seven!) of lightning blows, drawing blood as I'd yelp.

They thought they were kind, so they gave me Tylenol. Idiots! Tylenol is toxic, amply demonstrated by my ensuing vomiting and diarrhea. I noted well their repulsion when I did. Perhaps I could use this information later.

And my phantom balls hurt, too. The cat laughed even harder. This was just getting better and better for her, the feline skank! That was it! The gauntlet had been thrown. I'd had it. It was war.

I bided my time. I healed. My testosterone fell, but my resolve only strengthened. I decided the way to go was to "act out." I would become so bad that they'd have to find me another home. I didn't even care if was on the lap of some old folk. I'd already lost my doghood. What was next? My dignity? Or had that ship already sailed?

I laid out my battle plan. It was as brilliant as could be in the limited volume of gray matter I housed in my canine skull. But it didn't have to be PhD quality. We dogs have a tool chest of doggy things we know just make people crazy. Most of it has to do with excrement and waste products. Vomit don't hurt none, neither. It was all there in my mind. I was ready. I just needed the perfect opportunity.

I'm smart enough to grasp the intangible value of opportunity. For me, it was intimately entwined with surprise. For example, I couldn't just soil something right in front of someone; they had to "discover" it when they stepped in it. If I did it in plain sight, though, the uproar of human disapproval would disrupt all my vagal reflexes and put me into spincter-lock. That hurts. No, the surprise route not only added a shock-and-awe component to my attack, but offered the bonus of allowing a good bodily function to play out to a satisfactory conclusion, which is as important emotionally as it is metabolically. As such, opportunities make surprises possible.

"C'mon, Sluggo, time to go back to the vet." I remember that word. It was a word that no bye-bye or ride or in-the-car could counteract. The place where balls get chopped off. What's next? Vet: my reflex head-tilt was so vehement I think I pinched a nerve. I yelped!

"C'mon, Slugs ol' boy, it's just a post-op check-up. Easy." But all I heard was "Blah blah, Slugs, blah blah blah vet blah blah blah."

"Now be a good boy, Sluggaroo. I'm gonna go start the car. I'll be back in just a minute."

THE OPPORTUNITY

I'll be back in just a minute. I heard it.

I had memorized my drill for such an opportunity. The meter was running. I began to implement my plan, ticking off each item one by one:

• I tore open the sofa cushion; the material shredded easily.
• I eviscerated the throw pillows; no stuffing could prevail.
• I pushed over the overloaded garbage can in the kitchen; even took a brief moment to wolf down some chicken bones.
• I knocked over the milk carton on the kitchen counter; saw no use in crying over it.
• I chewed up the wiring to his authentic vintage turntable; then I eyed the first-pressing vinyl record on it for its demise as well.
• I crapped into both over-ear cups of his earphones; I could only imagine his surprise when he were to put them on.
• I managed to urinate on every bed in the house, the sofa, the full laundry hamper, and the open bag of Fritos.
• I threw up into the washing machine with all those little holes in the agitating part; I looked forward to a spin-cycle from hell.
• I wiped my ass on as many walls as I could in the time allotted; I think it was over seven of them successfully streaked. They looked more like racing stripes than skid marks which was ironic, given the hurry I was in.
• I tore out threading from the Persian rug in the living room.
• By now, I had some more squirts in me, of which I urinated on the keyboard of his desktop computer; it made the most peculiar noises before a little puff of smoke came out of it, smelling like ozone.
• I chewed and gouged the mahogany clawfeet of his grandmother's antique dining room table; my statement: "I was here!"
• I made myself throw up again. I made myself crap again. I made myself urinate again.
• Oh, and I killed the goddamn cat.

I surveyed my work. It was good work. I had checked off every box in my pre-battle plan. Now I just waited with, surprisingly, time to spare. I wagged my tail — couldn't help it. It's what we do when we're really happy.

Sometimes human beings get overwhelmed. They can react to one thing or flip out over another, but when presented with such a wide swath of destruction, mayhem, murder, and copious volumes of maladaptive behavior, they just shut down, catatonic.

"I was only gone a minute..." he murmured in overt shock and in disbelief. Then he saw the cat. I had arranged her body like a serial killer does his victims. "I was only gone a minute..." he said again, his voice breaking.

He had left the door ajar. Another opportunity!

I would run. I would escape.

"I was only gone a minute...how could he do all this in just a minute?" I heard him say as I sped past him, yipping and peeing the whole way out. He should have had my legs removed instead of my balls. "Only a minute..." he cried.

"Maybe a minute to you," I barked. "Seven for me!"

I fled this heinous place that took my dignity and my balls. And for no good reason! That'll teach 'im to mess with a guy's balls. All fourteen of 'em.