PETS

Fascinating how some people lavish so much love and attention on their pets. You’d think the world had run out of humans in need! I hasten to add, though, that I can’t wait to get me a miniature dog. Yes, yes! it’s terrible that breeders have played with dog genes to that extent, etc. etc. However, now that they exist, I want me one.

Once volunteered at a Y(MCA) “in da hood” [where I met a 15 year old with what I thought were multiple pagers, but the one around his ankle turned out to be a house-arrest monitoring device, you know, the sort of thing that tells “them” whether you’re holding up your end of the house arrest arrangement; chaperoned at teenage dances, where someone kept turning the lights out –even with me parked right by the switch– and SCANDALOUS bumping and grinding going on the whole time; and the ultimate: a camping trip at a county park, 12 male teenagers, and one insane female “counselor”-what was i smoking??- (the male counselors had pulled out last minute and I didn’t want to disappoint the boys)… we ended up being banned from the county park unless we went back with a ratio of one MALE counselor for every 2 kids] where they had a therapy dog. My first exposure to that whole concept of a "therapy pet" and I witnessed first-hand what truly effective therapy he was. He was a miniature daschund who was loved by everyone, even the most hardened boys. He was toilet trained to ring a “desk bell” that was next to the outer door (one of those hotel reception desk bells) if he needed to go to the bathroom, and he’d run in circles ringing it until attended to. Those "hard boys" would fight over who was going to lavish love and attention on him.

I want me a miniature just like him.