Harold

My dog paces around at midnight.

I have to keep a close eye out for owls. They’ve been known to swoop to collect small dogs in the area.

He’s getting pretty up there in years.

Harold will be 15 years old in December and that’s equivalent to around 88 human years.

He’s on thyroid medication for his hypothyroidism.

He’s on medicine to help reduce his high liver and gallbladder levels.

I give him a prescription dose of omega oils and a hip supplement.

Harold is a good dog; very quiet.

He sleeps most of the day.

He walks with me every morning to Sutter’s Fort. We go around the back and look at the turtles in the pond.

Harold’s vision isn’t great. The vet says he can only see shadows at best; full on cataracts.

Some nights he pees in his bed. He’s getting on in years. It’s not uncommon.

I ordered doggy diapers and they are in the mail.

We go out right before going to bed to take him outside for the bathroom.

I wake up in the mornings around 5:30 to 6:30 with a mild panic to take him outside to pee in the mornings. My dreams vanish.

As I walk him downstairs, bleary-eyed in the early dawn, I try to recollect my dreams. The feeling lingers, but it’s hard to remember the details when you’re out of bed so fast, pulling a jacket on, and putting on the harness and leash for Harold. He’s barely awake, too. Blinking up at me in disbelief, “why am I awake?” I ask myself the same question more and more during these dark mornings.

___

At night, I make sure Harold’s water bowl is full and he’s all tucked in.

He has started pacing in the night more and more.

Sometimes he scratches at the door and it breaks my heart a little bit.

If Harold and the cat were allowed in our room at night, we’d both get way less sleep as it was when we lived in the studio apartment.

On this particular night, Harold just keeps scratching. It’s so odd that I decide to take my pillow, a spare blanket and stay outside in the living room with him for the evening.

I go out and turn the light on to see if anything’s amiss. He has his pink hippo diapers on and he starts licking my leg. Harold is not a licker. That’s one thing I love about Italian Greyhounds, and my dog in particular. Very seldom licking. When he does give me a kiss it’s special and I could probably count the times he’s done it on my fingers.

Tonight he’s licking and, I dare say, nibbling on my leg as if I were made of one of his bully sticks. Unfortunately, Harold’s teeth and jaws are quite weak, so he often gives up on the really tough chews.

I look down and see he’s eaten more of the rug.

I take him outside again to see if he’s in need of the bathroom. A neighbor’s dog appears. The neighbors will often let their dogs out without a leash and call to them for ten minutes straight to plead with them to come back inside. They are little chihuahuas named after characters from the Bible.

Before I can tell what’s what Harold clamps down on Jesus’ skull. I hear a whimper and a crunch like I’ve never heard before. I look down to see Harold, my innocent old man, with his nose inside this dog’s skull. He’s mowing down on Jesus’ brain like he’s never eaten a day in his life (and I feed him quite well, thank you very much).

What the heck has got into him? I don’t have my phone to take a picture.

“Jesus!” “Mary!”

I hear the neighbor calling from her front door, too lazy to even come out and find her dog lying here; a victim of my newly zombified dog.

I’m looking around for Mary. There’s no hope for Jesus at this point, but I can still save Mary.

As luck would have it, most of Jesus’ remains have been consumed by my dog. He’s always been a fast eater. I carefully scoop of what’s left of Jesus- his paw pads and toenails- into a poop bag and scoop Harold up into my arms. Back inside, I put his diaper back on and wipe the blood and brains off of his mouth.

The neighbor keeps calling for Jesus, though Mary already ran back inside.

What do I do with the poop bag full of his toes? Then there’s a knock at the door. The neighbor must have heard me outside.

Harold’s licking my leg again and I’m holding the bag as I open the door slightly, feigning a dragged-out-of-bed demeanor.

“Hey, sorry to bug you, but did you see Jesus while you were out? I heard you and thought… he hasn’t come back.”

It’s tough pretending to be surprised and worried (but not overly surprised and worried) despite having seen his untimely demise. I told her to please let me know if I could help in any way and that I hope he shows up.

I closed the door and looked down at Harold.

“Look at the mess you’ve made.”

Though, in all honesty, and although I did really like Jesus, I always wonder why people refuse to just leash up a dog and walk it instead of being so lazy as to let it go outside unattended. I’ve heard so many horror stories of dogs getting mauled by other dogs, attacked by owls, and hit by cars due to their owners refusing to use a leash. Pet owners are supposed to protect our pets. I guess it’s also our job to prevent our pets from eating other dogs’ brains…

“Harold, what am I going to do with you now?”

I tapped my husband on the shoulder and whispered to him, “something happened. Harold did something.”

“Did he pee?”

“No.” I struggled to find the words. “He ate the neighbor’s dog. Well, he started with his brain. I have it’s paws.”

Ganesh sat up. Even waking up from dead sleep, he’s the handsomest man I’ve ever known.

“He ate a dog?” He calmly replies.

“I can show you the dog’s paws. It’s Jesus; the neighbor’s dog.” I open the bag and, with the rim of the plastic bag firmly in my finger’s grip, I push the contents up.

“Jesus.”

“I was just thinking; I used to play with these two sisters as a kid. They were raised religious. I would often say, ‘Jesus Christ’ when the phrase was called for. But they decided I should augment my language out of respect. So, I started saying ‘Cheese and crackers’. It worked for everyone involved.”

“I can hear her calling for the dog outside. Did you tell her?”

“No. I don’t think she needs to know. More importantly, I think Harold is now a zombie dog.”

“You’ve been watching too many zombie shows, Jessica.”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s a zombie. He went straight for the brains. Why else would he do that? Also, there are actual zombies in real life. Like there’s the ant and wasp scenario where the wasp injects something into the ant’s brain and makes it the wasp’s slave. Or maybe it’s a fungus’ spores that infect the ant. Something like that.”

“Where is Harold now? Man, he would just keep eating until he looks like a barrel on stilts.”

“I still remember that fat white Iggy from our old play IG play group. But the owner eventually got her weight down to where she looked normal again.”

We hear a loud yowl from the living room and scramble out to see what’s gotten into Maude. She is perched on top of our dinette table with all of her hair standing on end like a halloween cat. Tail poofed up and everything. Harold is pacing back and forth, whining like when he’s about to get fed dinner.

Ganesh says, “No. Don’t eat the cat!”