The Dog

We are still adjusting to life with Saffron; I thought I had pictures but don’t yet (sorry LeeAnn!).  I will take some soon.  Marti continues to call her Steak and we are continuing to deal with her behavioral issues but things are coming along slowly; she’s sleeping in the laundry room (better for my furniture) and she is able to approach other dogs without absolute terror (no more watching her cower before a rat terrier).  She likes to lay on my feet when I’m at the computer and keep them warm, and I say, if Marti did that, would I need a dog?  He still disagrees.

Anyway, I was reading Dooce today and followed her link to a craigslist ad entitled “Hideous, Mean Saggy-Titted Cur” in Austin, Texas. 

I don’t know if the poor dog ever found a home, but I certainly felt grateful that Saffron just pees on my carpet after reading this ad:

When my roommate found her on the streets, she was malnourished and skittish and had heart worms. You know, I’ve read more and more stories about pets being abandoned lately because of the economy. I recently got back from a gay wedding in California where one of the grooms had just rescued a Papillon he found starving in a ditch. He was neurotic and defensive for like the first few days, but now a week later he has settled in, and is doing great. And the Papillon’s doing well, too. But this pendulously mammaried cur – Elzora, my roommate calls her, though you might as well be meowing at her, because she doesn’t know the difference – she is not like that. Not. Like. That. At. All. This is not the precious, precocious Papillon someone rescues from a ditch. This is the miserable, ugly bitch (I use the term technically) that you make a little scrunchy-face at while glancing at it askance…before calling fricking Animal Control.

…

If you want to know what she looks like, she’s a dead ringer for the Capitoline Wolf [see above]. Look it up on Wikipedia while the article is still accurate. So Elzora would be great if you had two infants, for example, that you wanted to abandon in the woods only to have them found Western Civilization. Without the two little baby statues beneath her, though, I have to say that the first thing you notice about Mama Dog is: nipples. Obscenely large nipples. We think she was probably used for breeding or something because there’s really no other explanation. I’m not being cruel, I’m just saying. Because there’s one nipple in particular that is really disturbing. The rest you could maybe overlook. But she has this one nipple that hangs really low, and it’s fat, but then it gets really skinny, and then it gets fat again. It’s like it’s just barely hanging on, though it’s not, and evidently there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with it except how it looks. But man, that nipple is unsettling.

Anyway, thankfully Saffron has very normal nipples and we’ve been pee-free for about a week (knock on wood). Oh, and for anyone looking to get rid of a urine smell, might I recommend the product Out!, which I purchased after a long, trying drive out to Walmart in search of shoes for Maya and cleaning products for me. I used an entire half gallon — just dumped it on my carpet — but I am finally smell-free. My carpet is, anyway.