Monday, January 21, 2008

born to be tiny and spoiled

Who should come knocking on our door yesterday than our buddy Albert? Hey, Albert! Haven't seen you in awhile! Come on in!

Alberts' 2 year old Corvette is parked in our driveway. Alberts' 60 year old butt parks in one of my kitchen chairs. He's been up to a lot, and we catch up on it all at 98 mph.

Alberts one of those guys who just starts in, mid-sentence, and off he goes. This is not a man you ever, ever interrupt because it just throws his whole thing off. You have to wait for the breaks, slide in all your remarks and then heeeeee's OFFagainandherecomesanothermonologue.

During this he reached into his jacket and pulled out-what? Guess.

A brick of hash?

A flask of Jaegermeister?

A PEKINESE.

Yes, this bad man pulls out a tiny, tiny little freak dog, a scrunchy wunchie snuffly wuffly dog, and sets it on the floor.

It was wearing a pink sweater. With a hood.

He' s far from an anomaly, at least in this. You see a lot of guys, club guys, 1%ers, toting tiny ridiculous dogs around inside their coats, and its not rare to see those dogs in full outfits either. Years ago the president of the Vagos used to carry around a chihuahua named Suicide Killer. I've seen every toy breed you can imagine peeking out of a bad mans' leather jacket.

About the largest dog you can travel with comfortably on a motorcycle is a Staffie, and then it has to be on the smaller side of the breed standard. I've seen four or five Staffies in my time riding on the tank of a Harley, wearing goggles, jowls fluttering in the wind. Their owners usually glue a piece of carpet on there and the dog simply crouches down, digs in its nails and hangs on. This is, of course, illegal as hell. Imagine taking a Staffie upside the chops when his owner hits a big bump in the road. This would probably fuck up your entire outlook on the rest of the day.

Australian Sheepdogs and Border Collies will happily sit behind dad on the stock seat. But more often you see dogs poking their heads out of some kind of modified touring luggage. Beagles seem to like this. They sit in the container and poke their heads out the various holes and grin at you.
Anyone smaller than a beagle rides in dad's jacket, though. For hundreds of miles at a time. Happy as a little freak clam.

This fascinates the hell out of me. When we go to the ABATE swap this year I can guarantee you there'll be four or five guys wandering around with a buggy-eyed little freakdog sticking out of the front of their jackets like Cuato. They'll stand around in groups and talk to their buddies, just petting their doggies' head all the while. Most of these dogs will be wearing just about as much leather gear as their owners are wearing, and that gear is just about as expensive as Dads too.

When I lived in Portland there used to be this hippie guy that wore a top hat and rode around on an old Schwinn bicycle. Mounted to the front of the bike was a huge wire basket, and seated in the basket was a beagle-sized Champagne Poodle. Always. The guy was pretty nice; he was a busker and I saw him all over the place. The poodle, however, was NOT NICE. Not one little bit. That dog never left the bike, either. The guy would park his bike and that dog stayed right in the basket. Woe betide anyone who got too close or tried to pet the nice doggie. Nice doggie turned into fang faced slavering Hell Doggie. I never heard it bark. Attitude was all it needed. It simply became an eye rolling, snarling, keening monster in the blink of an eye while passers-by slowly backed away. You see, that's the kind of dog you'd think a biker would have, right? Not a bicycle riding vegetarian in a top hat.


I will never own a toy breed dog. I think it's unfair to the dog That dog's whole life is going to be spent looking stupid. Nothing you can do to it will make it anything other than stupid. Even if it's a mean little dog; nobody is going to take something the size of a guinea pig seriously, particularly when it's going yipyipyipyipyipyipyipyipyipyipyipyipyip. But of course, you know that every time Albert leaves the big, bad, heavily tattooed desperado I'm married to starts making remarks like 'Wasn't that a nice little dog? What'd you think of that dog, huh?'

Oh, he has one already picked out. He wants a pug. Yes, no mere toy breed horror for this bad man. You can pay up to 900.00 for a pedigreed pug. Oh yes. And what you get is broken! You have to spend an additional 800.00 just to make the thing work right! I personally would expect a little more value for my money in that case, you know? You get a pug; they can't breathe. Their hips are all messed up so they can't walk. Their jaws don't meet correctly. When they eat they get their food packed all up their noses and then they stop and snort it out all over the place. And then once you get it working right, what does it do? Sit there and look asinine. Why? You can get the same effect with a teenager. Plus you can make them yourself, for free.

31 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:39 PM

    Wow. I never knew that. Okay, the bit about teenagers I knew, but the big bad biker dudes having itty-bitty doglets? Now that's just weird.

    Do any of them have cats? Or budgies or something? Just wondering...

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  2. Anonymous1:16 PM

    bikers are gay

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  3. "You see, that's the kind of dog you'd think a biker would have, right? Not a bicycle riding vegetarian in a top hat."

    bikers usually have pet hat-wearing vegetarians? how inter-esting.

    what you say about beagles is true. no dog is happier than a beagle to have its head in the wind and be moving fast. Our (late) Daisy-do LOVED to hang her head out of the window of the car, jowels flapping, ears flying; she never got tired of it. Bless her doggie soul.

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  4. well, anon, some bikers ARE gay! they even wear pretty leathers and shit! what about that, eh? that is fucking amazing, innit?! Gay republicans, gay bikers, gay cowboys, gay CEOs...wow, it seems like they are really everywhere, huh? ya fuckin doofus.
    wow.

    oh and a pug, Ma? Ugh. Really? they're all prissy and whatnot. He needs another Opie, seriously. burly little mutt dog who bites hippies.

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  5. alala: isn't it strange? i've seen guys with conures, cockatiels, and ferrets, but mostly tiny yappy dogs.biker women overwhelmingly prefer boa constrictors; because it's not freudian enough that they ride a giant vibrator on two wheels i guess.

    anon: lets have a big hand for Mr.Kirk Johnson, ladies and gentlemen! A big hand and most of a forearm!

    cb: oh now dont you get all grammatical on me like you were some big english major college woman or something. thats EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT.
    kind of.

    SSA: the pigeon says the opie ate all the people.

    ...anyone?

    ...anyone??
    *runs away giggling*

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  6. ...still absurdly pleased with self

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  7. ps. SSA's right about pugs. pointless creatures.

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  8. I have a friend who is a big, muscular, 6 foot 6 inch black man with 2 teacup Yorkies.

    Picture THAT.

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  9. My mom has a little chihuahua, who is terrified of my kids. He's a tiny old thing who wants to be a big dog so bad that he nips at their shoes and refuses to let go.

    As if that scares them or something.

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  10. cb: 1. close your eyes (it won't work unless you do. really.)
    2. repeat the sentence 'the pigeons said the opie ate all the people' several times, slowly.
    3. now slur the words together and try to think like a 47 year old person who takes a lot of drugs.

    ...it's all clear now, isn't it?

    mj: i'll bet they're silkies, too.

    awa: isn't it just sad? all those ferocious instincts in a tiny, useless package of piddle and woofs.

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  11. I would never hurt any animal(self defence excepted) but little dogs give me the creeps.Euch! Years ago, a friend used to give me a lift home on his bike while the usual pillion boy(big Alsation) ran alongside.
    Maybe what your biker needs is a slap upside the head from a well-built wife?Or a big dog.

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  12. I once took a cat to the vet on the back of my motorcycle. I didn't make any concession for speed, which was flat out.

    Poodles are evil.

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  13. We have a biker dog named Scooty. He rides and if he doesn't get to ride he is pissed. He is a minature Schnauzer with attitude. He isn't that small like some of the minis. When Rock brought home the bike and fired it up. I expected Scooty to run, no he bunched up his muscles and prepared to jump up to the tank. We had to stop him because we didn't have anything on it yet. So our little dog has to ride and without a windshield thank you very much!!

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  14. My crazy ass tatooed up body piercer of a friend has a chihuaha with a tiny pink jacket too.

    Must be something in the water...

    And yes. Pugs are rather useless

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  15. i had a 5 pound maltese...meanest little bitch i have ever owned...i kept her hair short and she used to scare the piss out of everyone...people...dogs...no matter to her...when we lived in japan, she had a full grown akita male as her pet...she would go out the back and bark at his door for him to come out and prance him up and down the lawn...the dog never got out of step...when we would leave out the front door she would go over to his door and make this evil bark sound and you would see the stream of piss exit the front door...she had this way of turning her head around her neck and making this god awful hideous sound when she was pissed...everyone would just jump on furniture higher than her...and no man left their dog alone! i miss her so...she was my baby...just like momma

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  16. its a dogs world... cuato? wasnt that the other half of that one dude in that arnie movie with the chic who had three tits? i think there was a miget stripper as well... what the hell was that???? i just cant recall what that was... is that the cuato yer talkin bout?

    oh and dogs.... big or small, mean or nice, mutt or bred, these fucking things cost money. and when they are flat lining and bleeding all over the place youd do anything to save them.

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  17. Have you pointed out to the Yum Bik that Paris Hilton has a nice little dog she carries around with her.....is she prehaps a role model ????
    I have started doing that punctuation thing again....hav'nt I
    ***twitch**

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  18. SSA if you feed me well , I will bite hippies for you.
    Its kinda a hobby

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  19. When I was riding round Holland I met a bike gang with a dog. The leader had a sidecar, and a big Alsation sitting in it (German Shepherd, in case you're wondering). He told me that the police stopped them one day because the dog wasn't wearing a crash helmet. So the gang sat there and said "OK, if you can make him wear a crash-helmet, we'll admit we're in the wrong." Three policeman later, the gang were allowed to ride off, as they were.

    And the dog was wearing a leather jacket with wings on the back, and a motto (in Dutch) which said "I *really* eat pussy."

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  20. beastie, Mom is like martha stewart of the hippies, but I am like martha stewart on mescaline. Only less perky and a better cook. come on down!

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  21. I thought you were going to say you would never get one because they always have to look up and you are worried about their little necks getting all kinked up.

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  22. dinah: aw, the guilt will get to him once he has to actually open the wallet and pull out the cash. he's german, remember.

    tick: i used to take my cat on the bus. people used to move away from the hippie carrying the box full of howling demons...

    gale: yay for scootie! isn't that something how some dogs just cant get enough of the wind like that? you got to wonder what goes through their heads; that would make an animal think 'now THAT looks like a good time!"

    geo: it's one of those things you should write a grant for and research, you see? "The large human male-small idiot dog dichotomy explained by a recurrent 'd-145a-x dynamic occurring on the viridian oat phasic quadrant' or something.

    voices: right in one! yay! and sweetheart, im thinking of you. find the motherfucker and his shotgun and shove it up his ass!

    beast: you could do worse. that woman cooks a meanass bunch of lunch. and theres lots of hippies in her neiborhood too!

    sopwith: thats a scream! i love that the dog had his own sidecar, too! and flew a patch!

    ssa: see, and then he can bite mr. nosypants across the street and give him hybifobia.

    21mom: well that too. poor little....things.

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  23. Anonymous3:48 AM

    I've taken my cat on a motorbike too - she didn't appear to be too traumatised by it but she never quite got how to lean into the corners.

    F had a pug when he lived in LA (or at least his wife at the time did). It was probably the least strange of his pets, but he said that it was actually quite cute because it didn't realise it was a small dog and so when it barked would begin with a high pitched yap and then drop its tone as it tried to sound more like a big (and therefore more scary) dog.

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  24. Wasn't allowed to have a pet as a kid, but I always wanted a big, shaggy mongrel. Could never see the appeal of any kind of small, ratty dog. Ugh.

    So, did Paris Hilton and Britney get the idea of walking around carrying pooches dressed up is twee little outfits from seeing those old blokes carrying dogs round in their pockets?

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  25. thanks ma... i know youd be here if you could, backin me up.

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  26. hendrix: actually i was kind of hard on pugs. the ones for sale locally are kind of 'bargain basement' specimens, though. I love poor little woofie trying to sound like a big dog!

    Betty: i think that trend is played out. Now they're all busy descending into a drug fueled meltdown simultaneously.

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  27. Anonymous1:55 AM

    Mutts is a jack /staffie cross and can be as mean as hell. But he sits on my lap when I drive and if gets bored sits up and licks my face as we hurtle at 90 mph down the motorway...

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  28. Kill all hippies.

    I want a six foot tall Irish wolfhound that requires feeding with huge chunks of bleeding red meat.

    This will prove my punkish credentials.

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  29. Anonymous7:33 AM

    We now have two little yappy ones around 10lb each. Last one was a four pound long hair chihuahua, looked like a ball of steel wool on pencils.
    Good advice: get a girl, the boys always feel the need to 'mark' everything.

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  30. Anonymous8:24 PM

    In a past life only mentioned here I once worked on a Pekinese ranch, some thirty odd pekes in two packs. You couldn't let the packs mix or they'd fight to the death. Didn't call them lion dogs for nothing.
    They had a fenced foot high outdoor run, very orientalish, boulders and pottery. In the winter they were a line of little snow monkies outside my kitchen window. They liked to break loose and pick cherry tomatoes in the summer.

    The owners of these dogs weren't even gay.

    When I left the kennel I took a little black teacup peke named...Dinah. She looked just like Aunt Jemima. Back in sin city I carried her around in my man bag (har) for years. Owned a hungarian puli too at the time. Nothing ever got me through a bank line-up faster than Dinah. Charm for days. The other morning I moved into a new studio space and dreamed that as I entered the door she was standing at my feet just as pleased as punch to see me, come on in and get to work. And I did.

    But lord was she gay.

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