Who Let the Dogs Out?
The underlying significance of that global megahit never hit home so much as when we finally adopted dogs and they did indeed get out during a recent party. Fortunately for us, the babe who secretly absconded with our diposable Kodak Max for a naughty clandestine photo party joyride, snapping funny drunken pics of this (toilet) and that (out of focus nostril) and those (Thanks for the mammaries!), could also wolf whistle like nobody’s business. And by “wolf” we do not mean “vwrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppp wwwrrrrroooo!“ that ever-obnoxious trill so often associated with the name. No. We mean wolf, as in canine, as in herd the flock and raise the dead. The girl’s from Oklahoma, and yee-haw, boy, can she whistle. Good thing, since the perro in question is quite the scoundrel absconder himself. It took only one tweeet from the sweet lips of one Okie to send our German Shepherd bounding over six 6-foot fences in her direction and ultimately to safety.
Then next time the Man (the name of our German Shepherd is “the Man”) made it out of the front door, we had no whistling Midwestern heroine to fall back on. So, the boy joined us as we raced out the door, across the street, into the neighbor’s yard, back out onto the street and across it again, into numerous other neighbor’s yards, and finally south, as the Man beelined it for the dreaded whizzy busy drive time avenue a block away.
We screamed for him: “Man!!!” “No! Man!!!” as he crossed the harrowing highway. He came to a dead halt. Fortunately, a driver saw him, skidded, and missed — so it wasn’t really a dead halt, but it was quite the deer-in-the-headlights moment nonetheless. We bolted as best we could back to the house to fetch the car, assigning junior the task of keeping up with the Man as he made his way slowly back in to the relative quiet of our neighborhood. We don’t remember running actually, though we know we did and dismissed it as one of those “mom finds child under car and can suddenly lift two tons of steel”-type of adrenal moments.
Goddamn dog.
When we drove up the street parallel to ours, we saw the Man in the firm grip of the boy, safe in his care, waiting, panting, for a ride home. He hopped in the back seat with an innocent smirk on his pointy snout as if nothing had happened. We visualized whirled shepherd.
For the love of dog.
As the Man slid into the front door of the house, his usual partner in crime, a miniature poodle-X named “Chico” greeted him, hopping up and down on all fours and taking in a few whiffs of ever-elusive freedom.
At Our Core, Animals
Rock & Roll Animals
Club lizards and nocturnal beasts of the rockin’ variety might enjoy a night out with San Antonio’s Sons of Hercules, LA’s Lazy Cowgirls, and a semi-Skunks reunion this Friday, Feb. 2, 9pm at the Continental Club to celebrate Dianne Scott’s Kick-Ass Rock & Roll Birthday Bash and benefit the SIMS Foundation all in one fell swoop. www.continentalclub.com or 441-2244.
Happy Candlemas to Ya, Li’l Fella! Now Get Back in That Hole!
You don’t need some derned gopher or Punxsatawney whatever to tell you what’s up with winter. According to the latest Farmer’s Almanac, all’s ya gotta do is stick a finger in the air on Groundhog Day, this Friday, Feb. 2, and look around. If it’s rainy and cloudy, winter will suffer a quick demise and farmers across the land will do a happy little jig.
This article appears in February 2 • 2001.