Photo by Aaryn Belfer
Blackface is always wrong.
With that out of the way, it’s time for an update on my Bubble Boi, my lemon puppy, my now-nine-month-old labradoodle doggie named KEVIN!!!. Regular readers will remember that I wrote about our pup back in August of last year. To recap: My family and I brought home the cutest dang puppy we ever did see with the explicit expectation he would spark joy. Yes, such gargantuan amounts of joy that we’d be able to forget for a while the fascist trauma we’d been (and still are) enduring. It’s fair to say now that, perhaps, this was too much for KEVIN!!!’s tiny labradoodle shoulders.
Upon KEVIN!!! we placed the full weight of all our hopes and dreams of beach days, dog parks and endless cuddles on the couch. Not long after he came home, however, he contracted a gruesome and near-fatal autoimmune disease known as puppy strangles.
It was awful. I won’t go into it here because I already covered the gory details, but we spent three months getting him well. During that time, and because of the disease, KEVIN!!!’s vaccination schedule came to a screeching halt. The vet put him on several rounds of steroids, which suppressed his immune system. This also meant that we had to quarantine him to our home, away from other dogs for fear of developing some other God-awful sickness, Parvo being the most concerning. It also meant he got all kinds of other bacterial infections: Both ears, both eyes, the lungs… And then there was the Cone of Shame. Dog lovers everywhere can attest to the horrors of the Cone of Shame.
We got through that painful time together and what came out of it was—is—a super cool and alternately dopey muppet of a dog who lives up to every inch of his name. It begs to be yelled out. I take extra special pleasure when I have to scold him in public spaces filled with humans named Kevin; that always makes for a good time. “KEVIN!!! Leave it!” I said as he sniffed the crotch on a guest at our annual holiday party in December. One of the DJs we’d hired to play was named Kevin and he looked like he’d just been busted stealing his dad’s vodka.
When KEVIN!!! eats, his kibble goes flying in every direction and he doesn’t bother to clean it up. We had to buy a thing called the Slobber Stopper to replace his water dish because he likes to dunk his entire furry face into the water and empty every last drop onto our floors. He digs in the grass when it rains and has made several Jackson Pollack-worthy mud paintings on the walls and cupboards of our kitchen. He jumps up on the bed and walks over my body to wake me up or lays on my head when he wants to sleep. And when he runs through the house, he slides around corners and slams into walls, collects himself and continues on. He is a combination of Cookie Monster and Kramer from Seinfeld. Kevin don’t care.
So things have gone swimmingly with KEVIN!!! since the puppy strangles had a stranglehold on our house. All the joy we’d anticipated has come to fruition even as we still suffer under the weight of... well, you know.
Feel like there is another shoe about to drop? If so, that’s very observant.
Because KEVIN!!! is a wild beasty, he managed to get himself a little hot spot on his rear right leg in late January and did not pass “GO” on his way back to the doggie jail known as the Cone Zone. Who would think a tiny little sore would warrant the dunce cap? But that’s how it went down; one vet visit and $220 later, and KEVIN!!! was like a person without peripheral vision, banging into walls and getting his head stuck in our dog door because he’s not a puppy anymore and his cone is an XL.
And seeing as how the shortest distance between two points is a straight line—and because KEVIN!!! recently tried to hump not just my leg but my face—I reasoned that it was as good a time as any to take his balls.
He’s already wearing the cone, I thought. Might as well kill two birds by excising the two stones.
So we had our little boy neutered. And as life in Belferland goes, his testicles—wait, scratch that; his scrotum—is swollen with a hematoma. I had to be the one to call the vet and talk about my dog’s nutless bag and the shaft of his peen where the sutures are. For fuck’s sake, wasn’t the dripping pus of puppy strangles enough? What did I do in my last lifetime to deserve this?
My gag reflex may be working overtime and KEVIN!!! may be humiliated in the Cone, but I’ve got his back. As I write this, he’s sleeping next to me on the bed, and together we’re waiting on Jeff Bezos (I can’t believe I’m actually cheering for that nutbag right now) to deliver a Suitical Recovery Suit for my four-legged friend. A doggy bodysuit with modesty snaps has got to be less embarrassing and more comfortable than the Cone, right?
I love this dog, y’all. But I’m ready for smooth sailing, long dog walks and uneventful trips to dog beach.
Oh! And there’s the doorbell! Suitical Recovery Suit is here. Wish me luck...
Also: Blackface is always wrong.