If you want to be liked, get a dog. The people you work with are not your friends. -Deborah Norville
So the Oscars are over, and all the golden statuettes dispersed, and every winner will spend the next 2 weeks sloshing their way through a multitude of droning television interviews, and wondering whether to place the coveted naked award in their Beverly Hills living room, or maybe the cushy salon of their Manhattan townhouse, or perhaps next to the reclining Buddha in their thatched Aruba hut. http://www.oscar.com/ It’s a big decision you know. I wish I had such meaningful verdicts to pontificate on, but I’m much too busy paying PG&E and trying to figure out if Mac n’ Cheez goes better with Hamburger Helper or if Rice-a-Roni is the better choice.
I love dogs. They live in the moment and don’t care about anything except affection and food. They’re loyal and happy. Humans are just too damn complicated. -David Duchovny
So many options, how DOES the other half live? How does one choose a Giorgio Armani suit over Dolce and Gabbana? Is the structured Chanel gown worth more photos opts than the sleek Vera Wang column? If I go with Harry Winston jewels instead of Van Cleef and Arpels, will I end up talking to (gasp!) Katie Couric instead of Diane Sawyer? Will the $74 Calvin Klein stockings be more supportive than those $6.00 Gap ones I spied on sale? Is my $23.00 Dior Addict Pearl Shine more plumping than my $6.99 Neutrogena Moisture Shine in Razzle? How can I be expected to even consider carrying last year’s Gucci tote on the Red Carpet, when my Prada handbag is at the cleaners, and my handmade diamond Judith Leiber clutch has yet to be delivered? Whew, I’m feeling faint…I need a well chilled bottle of Perrier, an herbal enema, and my Blackberry…now get me to the spa…
I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive.
– Gilda Radner
It’s no secret that I am a COMPLETE and total film freak of nature. Sitting in a darkened movie theatre is my kind of happiness. I know countless pieces of worthless celebrity trivia, I subscribe to Vanity Fair and US Weekly, I can rattle off bits of scene selections at will, and most annoyingly, can actually do entire movies verbatim, much to the chagrin of those around me. Don’t even think about sitting in the same room with me during “Young Frankenstein”, or “Blazing Saddles”, and that also goes for “Barefoot in the Park”, “What’s Up Doc?”, or “Postcards from the Edge”. (‘That’s me, I don’t want life to imitate art, I want life to BE art’). Last Sunday, I was glued to the television from 2:30 on for the Academy Awards, with a Lemontini in my hand and a bowl of well-oiled theatre popcorn by my side. So it should come as no surprise that when I adopted my mutt 15 years ago, I named her after a silver screen character.
Why is it that my heart is so touched whenever I meet a dog lost in our noisy streets? Why do I feel such anguished pity when I see one of these creatures coming and going, sniffing everyone, frightened, despairing of even finding its master?
-Emil Zola
I rescued “Hap” from the dismal cement confines of the San Francisco SPCA, where she had been interred after a Good Samaritan called in her owner’s bad behavior. I never did find out what sort of inhumane treatment was inflicted upon her, but I can only imagine. I don’t get people who torture animals, what is UP with that? The electrodes in their pea brain wiring must be rusted or something, or maybe it’s all the Budweiser and Jerry Springer reruns. Hap was named after Audrey Hepburn’s last film role, in a lovely little production called “Always”, where she plays a scissor-wielding angel giving Richard Dreyfuss an untimely post-mortem haircut. An early Spielberg film, it’s worth the rental bucks just to see John Goodman get absolutely drenched in a fire-fighting-pilot-training routine gone hysterically wrong. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096794/
Dogs don’t like to be left alone. It’s not like, when you leave, he goes, “Great, time to finish writing my novel!”
-The Truth About Cats & Dogs
By my count, the critter and I lived in 7 different places during the many years we belonged to each other. We ran the gamut between San Francisco, Marin, the East Bay, Alameda, and finally settling here in Fresno. During that time, she was my best pal between boyfriends and jobs, sunset walks and early-morning road trips, holidays, birthdays, sweltering summers, frigid winters, 3 cars and 1 husband. She could have been a sled dog, dragging me behind her every evening, with the drive and purpose of a Husky sloshing through the Iditarod. Anywhere I lived, the neighbors would inevitably ask, “Who’s walking whom?” Ha, ha, that is sooooo funny. Wow, that NEVER got old. When one of Hap’s back legs was removed due to a bone cancer diagnosis, I was amazed how well she got along afterward. Officially dubbed the “tripod” dog from then on, the official neighborhood remark changed to, “Hey, that dog’s only got 3 legs!”. Even though I was tempted many times, I always refrained from firing back, “You’re kidding, when did THAT fall off!?”.
He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion. -Unknown
When Hap had her surgery, I thought it was the toughest thing we’d ever have to go through together. Boy was I wrong, never dreaming it would be so heart wrenching to put her down. She ran around on those 3 legs for almost 6 years, while her sight began to fail and her eyes took on an opaque, iridescent glow. But somehow, she could meander her way around our backyard in the dark, the nametag on her collar announcing her whereabouts. Her hearing steadily declined, but she still cocked her head when called, and trembled in her bed when the gardeners fired up their blowers. It’s a tough thing playing God, and deciding the fate of someone who has meant so much to you. Such feelings of guilt and regret; the weighing of differences between your own selfishness and their quality of life.
You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
In the end, I couldn’t stand her suffering anymore, and finally had to convince myself it was time. But cradling her little head, and looking into those milky eyes, I believe she made things easier for me. It’s as if she were saying it was okay, and she was ready. And even though she’s gone, out of force of habit, I find myself glancing out the sliding glass door, expecting to see her lovely face. I loved her like crazy, and miss her terribly. Sometimes, I can still hear the jingle, jangle of the tag on her collar, as she races across the stepping-stones, waiting for me to chase her. If Hap were still here, I’d present her with the Academy Award for Best Supporting Pet in an everyday role, for the thousand licks of a tongue to get me through the movie that is my life. But I think she would have been just as happy with a Milk Bone.
Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really. -Agnes Sligh Turnbull
A good dog never dies, he always stays, he walks besides you on crisp autumn days when frost is on the fields and winter’s drawing near, his head is within our hand in his old way. -Mary Carolyn Davies