But she was our worthless dog and we loved her…

My dog is so sweet. A 45-pound animal covered with white fun. She looks like the cross between a wolf and a polar bear cub. She is sweetness personified. Just being around her makes me feel guilty for not spending more time with her. To add to the sweetness is the fact that she is smart. She listens to commands. She listens to me. And she NEVER runs off. Never. If trapped outside she’ll sit on the front porch all day and all night but not run off.

You’d think we’d (Vampires) would have large sleek black dogs.

I did have a black dog once – the family dog when I was a child. She was a large lumbering mix of dozens of mix matched breeds. Black with a white chest, short fur, small floppy ears that would stand up sometimes, squinting eyes. My brother rescued her from underneath a carriage wheel when she was a small pup (before I was born.) She grew and grew along with a girth that was almost the same as her length. Her feet were large along with the cauliflower callused elbows. Her eyes were small. Her teeth were fierce and crooked.

We called her Athena after the ancient goddess. Athena never came when called. She never stayed. She ran off at every chance, usually to come back covered in mud, blood, fur from another unfortunate animal, water or paint. Sometimes she’d be limping but in a few days she’d be back out again. She would attack any other dog she came across no matter how large or ferocious.

Athena also gave off a smell that would wake the dead. A toxic fume that would stick to every atom of that ugly dog. A putrid smell that reminded one of rotting dead fish on a hot summer day with a sauce of putrefying internal organs mixed with vomit. No amount of washing would take away the smell. My mother would spray the dog with Violet water and hope for the best but the best never came to be.

No matter what her social difficulties were we loved that dog. I’d dress her up. My brothers would get her excited so she’d run around in crazy fast circles growling and jumping. They’d throw balls that she’d catch, or not. As a very small children my brothers Aaron and Val, and I would ride Athena like a pony.

The strangest thing though was that Athena was afraid of the dark. This fact frustrated my father to no end (for obvious reasons). Athena was exactly the wrong dog for our Victorian Vampire family but he knew he’d break the hearts of 5 children if we ever parted ways with that damn dog.

Her companion was a large black cat we called Apollo. Athena would grab him by the neck and haul him all over the place. I don’t ever remember Apollo having any fur on is neck. When Apollo died I thought Athena would die too. She languished for months without him.

But she lived until she was 18 years old. She was as worthless as any dog could ever be, but she was our worthless dog and we loved her. My father mourned her death and still mentions her.

Over the next couple of years we had a string of worthless dogs my brothers picked out. None of them worked out so we quickly found them new homes. They were never quite as worthless or unique as Athena.

In the meantime we acquired a large collection of wonderful clean pampered cats that loved the night.

And then after we’d all moved on my parents found that large sleek dog that would be worthy of any Vampire couple. He was a dark dog with shoulders that came a full 38 inches off of the ground. A black dog with fur like sleek glass and the soul of a killer. OK, he didn’t have the soul of a killer. The dog, Bruno was a goof ball of the highest order, but he was extremely well-trained (without my brother and me there all the time to teach him bad things).  And on command he would rip out a man’s heart (but only for my father or mother).

But good or bad, your first dog is always like your first love – someone you’ll never forget.

More on Dogs at Vampire Maman:

A Dog Tale

Night Blooming Jasmine

Dogs and Cats behaving Badly

I hate my cat

A Vampire Muses on Cats

The Black Cat – by E. A. Poe