I’m a Dog

January, 2021

I’m not really feeling it right now so I asked one of our holiday house guests, and member of our COVID pod, to take over writing this post and she agreed. So enjoy.

Hello. I’m happy because I weigh more than 70 lbs but I’m not even a year old. My name is Tonka. Like the trucks. Pretty cool, huh. You’re my friend even though I can’t smell you. Do you know how to play fetch? If not I’ll train you. I know how to train humans because I’m a dog.

My human Mom and I went to hang for the holidays at her human Mom and Dad’s house. They have the same porcelain water bowls that I can’t drink out of. What a waste. They also have a backyard with a lawn I can eat. They also had dirt that they covered in cement pavers when I dug it up. They won’t let me have any fun. I love them anyway.

I trained my human grandma really fast. I have a big tire with my name on it that I stick my snout through. When I bring it to her she will roll it down the hallway. When I bring it back she does it again. I also trained her to do this with my special holiday ball. Fun!

My human grandpa is untrainable. He is always in a big chair that looks like a LazyBoy on Wheels. If his chair isn’t tilted back enough his head flops down. I brought him the tire with my name on it and he sorta laughed silently but all he moved was his head and then only a little. I still love him and even lick his feet in the morning which he doesn’t like.

Humans are wierd. They are always looking at screens. Sometimes they talk to the screens. My human grandma’s screen talks back so I can hear the entire conversation. It’s really boring because they never talk about dogs. My human grandpa doesn’t talk to his screen because he can’t talk or even hardly grunt. But he can talk to other humans using his screen. It sounds like a stoned robot. The other humans like it even though he still can’t pay fetch. Humans are wierd.

Human grandpa also has a box with lots of chew tubes and a squishy mask. Whenever I want a little taste of the chew tubes the humans yell at me. Unfun. Human grandpa used to wear a squishy mask just at night but now he wears it more and more during the day too. In the late morning the stoned robot will say “nebulize me” and they bring out another box and hold a not so squishy mask over his face and it starts to smoke. When it stops smoking they say his lungs are clear and it’s time to to thin out his secretions in his throat. Humans use funny words. To me it just smells like salt. Then they bring out yet another box with a not squishy mask and use it to blow air into his lungs. A few seconds later the mask sucks all the air out of his lungs and he tries to cough. And then they use a wand to suction out his drool. Yow! By this point I just want to go back to my crate.

An hour before dinner they attach a tube to his belly They use a syringe (pretty cool I know that word!) to push into his belly tube what my human grandma calls his study drug. Some of it dripped on the floor. Because I’m a dog I licked it up. It tasted like rancid Hawaiian Punch laced with Drano.

I used to eat like humans, with all my kibble in a bowl. That way I could gobble it all up really fast then barf it all up really fast. My humans didn’t like this. So they make me eat from a bowl that forces me to fish out kibble from between ridges. This makes me eat more slowly and I don’t barf anymore. Bummer. They did the same thing with human grandpa. Instead of feeding him human food or kibble they squirt brown sludge into his belly. And he never barfs.

I was going to tell you how he gets put into a giant crane to go to the porcelain water bowl but a red dot of light just streaked across the floor so I have to catch it. Why? Because I’m a dog.