Nino

I remember the days I used to smite the females with reckless abandon. Despite my having French origins, Becca, my bubbly owner, had a penchant for double-syllabic Italian appellations. She named me Nino, after a poem-composing boyfriend she once had, but who had drowned in the ocean seeking the poetry of a watery death. She kept his memory alive through me. Humans can be sentimental that way.  

Before I was four years old, Becca had me inseminate half a dozen French Bulldog bitch-dykes with my potent sperm. The dames never had a litter consisting of fewer than six pups. I was an equine dog. I was a stud. Becca got thousands for some of my offspring. She even sold one to a famous hound-dog-loving rapper. But what do I care? Neither money nor fame mean a damn thing to a dapper dog in single-minded pursuit of canine bliss-on-earth. 

I had luck with the human ladies, too. Ricky, Becca’s brother, would beg to take me to the plein-air mall for walks. I’d be lavished with attention by the women window shoppers. I heard it all: “What’s this handsome guy’s name? He is absolutely adorable!” “Can I scratch behind his ears?” “Can I rub his belly?” Ricky, made a good tool of me and scored on more than one occasion due to my charm and striking looks. What did I get in return? Growl…the tight bastard never once even gave me a doggie treat for helping him seduce those pushover human females.

Aside from the stress related to disappointing an owner’s expectations to copiously reproduce, a stud Frenchie’s earthly concerns aren’t many, and his pleasures are quite simple. Although it caused the superficially demure Becca a considerable amount of consternation, when it came to other males of my species, I was by no means friendly. 

I got a tremendous kick from antagonizing other macho canines who thought they were better, tougher, or fitter than me. No matter the contender’s size, I would preen, bark, snarl, and indefatigably tug at the leash until we were separated by a good city block. Becca’s preoccupation with this tendency of mine was matched by her admiration. “My, my, aren’t you truly the stud worth your weight in gold,” I heard her once say. 

There’s only one thing I enjoyed more than confronting a fellow masculine dog whenever I was taken for a walk, and that was chasing a stream of water. One of Becca’s three sons, Becca’s Belittling Boy as I thought of him, had a habit of setting an adjustable hose nozzle on “stream” and shooting it in spurts into random parts of the garden. I’d run back and forth after the jet of water, leaping and attempting to lap at it in mid-air. 

Sometimes the young human would aim the stream directly into my mouth. Ah, the satisfaction. Especially on a sweltering summer day. There would come the time, however, when the Belittling Boy would get bored with the pointless game and instead of spurting me in the mouth, would shoot me in the blowhole. Whimper…I never learned my lesson and repeatedly fell for the duplicity, skulking away into the furthest corner of the yard with my tail between my legs whenever the pastime soured.

I could dash after streams of water for hours…days if I neglected to sleep. But that’s one thing I wouldn't and won’t do. Beauty sleep is important, especially if a Frenchie wants to ward off wrinkles of which we already have plenty. It’s an attribute of my particular breed, as is portliness and an I’m-too-sexy-for-my-collar Frenchie je ne sais quoi. When I reached early-maturity, however, I did start to lose sleep.

After my fifth birthday, Becca had me castrated. I became a trophy pet, a mere testament to past glories. Deprived of my seed, I lost interest in fornicating. Chasing after streams of water in the summertime lost its appeal. Becca bought and brought two young females, Fiona and Vita, to the house with the intent of mating them with other prize-winning pooches. The two new canine acquisitions soon became house favorites and royal pains in the ass. They sensed my impotence, and did their best to torment me as a result.

Fiona and Vita began to crowd me out of my fair share of resources. They would viciously compete for my human mistress’ and masters’ attention. They received the lion’s share of food. I eventually moved from resting and slumbering on my own mattress, to laying on the cold marble floor. By the second winter of this new living arrangement, I grew weary. I had had enough.

In protest, I began urinating and defecating in the house. I tested the limits of my mistress' and her Boys’ patience. "Nino, not again,” they'd exclaim, as I smirked, hidden behind a couch or beneath a table.

Becca thought it was a medical problem. I wasn’t old enough to be incontinent, but the veterinarian prescribed medication anyway. The doggie pills made me hallucinate. I would have fits of aggressive barking directed at Vita and Fiona, who would transform into twin younger versions of me before my medicated eyes. I guess it was my way of expressing the feeling that if I still had my testicles, I’d be capable of taking on two of the former young, favored and virile specimens I once was. Was this a realistic belief, or was it a delusion of canine grandeur?   

Not knowing my barking fits’ etiology to be pharmaceutically-related, Becca took me to a pet psychologist who correctly identified the cause of my newly-developed bad habits. “Nino’s formerly privileged place in the home has been usurped by his new companions. He has regressed to urinary and anal infantilism as a reaction-formation.” 

“Huh? In layman’s terms, if you don’t mind,” Becca said.

“Nino now has the mindset and emotional maturity of an infant. Treat your adult dog with the compassion you would a human newborn. Forgiveness is the key.”

The doctor’s assessment and words touched Becca. She resolved to tolerate my physiological peccadillos if her Boys would assume the responsibility of doggie maids. They did, but it came at a cost to me. Becca’s Boys soon became discontent in their new role as canine custodians. They would mercilessly aim for my rectum whenever I was in the yard and they were hosing the lawn, and continued to gripe when I would pee or poo in their human dominion, which I continued to do in despair. This torture was compensated by Becca’s almost saccharin affection for me, “Nino, you may be a bad, old dog, but you’re the best, bad, old dog there ever was” she’d say, accompanying words such as these with a barrage of caresses, and, sometimes even, kisses on the mouth.          

I lived the horror and forgiveness day after day, until Becca, on a drunken bender, decided she had had enough of my incontinent insolence. It was the night before Christmas, and, choking back tears my mistress said to me, “Nino, you’ve made me sooo happy, but you can’t half babies anymore. You don’t bring mama no more money, so I (sob) have to let you go.”

She removed my collar and nametag and opened the front door to the house, which was located a hundred yards from the Back Bay, an inlet for the ocean—with marshy areas to be avoided, sand dunes for frolicking, and tall grasses for hiding. It also had abundant wildlife for an area so close, literally adjacent, to the suburbs. Geese, heron, snowy egrets, a variety of ducks, blue bellied lizards, field mice, rabbits and hares all made the nature preserve their home. But most important amongst the fauna for me, personally, were the coyotes that slept during the day and stalked the environs after dark, seeking fresh water sources and warm-blooded prey.      

Becca closed the front door with a definitive thud, and I was overcome by the terrific joy evoked by the possibilities confronting me. Start off the familiar path that led to the Back Bay to chase sleeping waterfowl into the inky waters of the marshland? Go in hot pursuit of rodents or rabbits braving the ominous night to forage for food? Amble over to the neighbor’s fence and begin a barking match against his uptight miniature Schnauzer, with its Tolkeinesque dwarf’s beard and mustaches, and its peaked eyebrows?

I opted for none of the aforementioned courses of action and chose instead to actualize a recurrent dream of mine: to run in a pack of coyotes. Often at night, while sleeping in the home of the owner who had just ejected me from her residence, I’d hear the Back Bay coyotes howling. Rather than be roused from my slumber by the feral sounds, I’d begin to dream that I joined the wild Canidae pack. While still asleep, I’d commence to utter a muffled bark and my body would twitch as I dreamt of running with the collective of coyotes.

Now, finally outside, away from the reproachful eyes of mistress Becca and her Boys, I set out in search of my wild canine compatriots.

As I wandered along the path into the wilder part of the Back Bay, I heard panting behind me. I turned to see them there in all their feral glory. Three coyotes, coats bristling with anticipation, lips curled back in glee. I hadn’t found them. They had found me. I felt self-conscious about my short stature, standing several heads lower than the coyotes and could not help but look up, wide-eyed, at their superior, sinewy figures and wild countenances.

Before I could make a submissive gesture to demonstrate my goodwill, my desire to be one with them, one of the coyotes commenced snarling, saliva dripping from its fangs. This did not bode well for me. Would my dream never materialize and I end up nothing but a midnight dinner of dog meat to be feasted upon by these feral fellows under the mesmerizing light of a full moon on the night commemorating the birth of baby Jesus?

The other two coyotes joined the first in their displays of immanent carnage, growling, snarling, and salivating as if they were intending to make me submit without a fight. I was, however, Nino, the French Bulldog who always aggressed against the neighborhood’s mutts when I was taken for a walk. Nino, who preened, barked, growled and, if within leash distance, bit a dog with an inferior character, a canine with less chutzpah, and they invariably did have less spine, less spirit than me.

Instead of cowering against this formidable threesome, I stood my ground, my adrenaline pumping out of my adrenal glands and into the deepest part of my primitive brain as well as my lion’s heart. 

I commenced to growl, snarl, and salivate, matching the trio’s ferocity.

The contest of canine wills was interrupted by the shout of a young, male human. 

“Hey, Tay, check this out!”

The coyotes were hungry and did not back down from the interceding coatless bipeds with large forebrains and opposable thumbs.

As the leader of the pack lunged for me, I heard a whir in the air above me, and a stone forcefully hit the coyote alpha male squarely on the skull. With his sharpshooting skill, the human named Tay had allowed me to narrowly escape a serious mangling.

The lead coyote whimpered and beat a hasty retreat as the humans began yelling at and waving away the other two ravenous, and now demoralized, members of the pack.

“It’s a Frenchie, Tay. He must be worth at least $3,000,” said the other human. “Should we try to find its owner?” he added.

“Hell no, we just found ourselves a better Christmas gift than we’ll ever get from our families this year,” said Tay, who along with his friend appeared to be in his early twenties. Their hip-hop fashionable beanies and hooded jackets reeked of marijuana, and as Tay picked me up, I could smell beer on his breath. Before they chanced upon me and the coyotes, the two young men were wandering the Back Bay smoking reefer and chugging brews.

“We saved its ass,” said Tay, “It owes us big time.”

“Tiny can’t fight no more. He’s seen his best days,” said the other human who’s name I did not know yet. I was to find out that Tiny was a miniature Doberman Pinscher who Tay kept as a fighting dog meant for matches with other pint-sized canines. Meaning dogs about my size and weight. 

“You see how this fella stood up to them three coyotes? This guy’s a veritable canine murderer. I think I’ll call him Murdock, Murdy for short. We just found ourselves Tiny’s replacement.”

My name is Nino, I barked, never will it be Murdock, Murdy, or any such other second-class canine’s name.             

As if magically conjured by my thoughts, I heard Becca and her Boys calling me in the distance. She must have been past the state of inebriated pitilessness she was in half an hour ago when, under the effects of several fluted glasses of prosecco, she kicked me out of the house on this most sacred of evenings. 

Becca! Boys! I barked, Save me from this menacing couple of dimwitted miscreants! They intend to make me do their foul bidding and fight on command! Nino Corleone fights when it suits him, not to win bets for craven men, barely past adolescence, who vicariously benefit from watching bloody contests between miniature canines.

“Niiiinooo,” I heard again, much closer, this time. Salvation was at hand!

“Here that, Tay? Must be Murdock’s owner,” said the unnamed human.

“Let’s get outta here, quick,” said Tay, who tucked me under an arm and began running in the direction opposite from my approaching saviors.

I became Tay Schwartz’ prize fighting dog, and won him over $5,000 dollars in bet money until I was delivered from this situation two months later when one of the owners of a rabid Maltese I bested called the cops on Schwartz, and his miniature fighting dog racket was dissolved. Schwartz, whose parents were tech-executives made sure their son only got a slap on the wrist in court when he faced charges of animal cruelty.

Back when I was still her dog, Becca had me tagged with a GPS chip. Animal control authorities located her, but as a result of checking into rehab, she avoided being convicted of animal negligence. As a result of this stroke of good fortune, my noble name was restored.

I stayed in an overcrowded animal shelter for another two months before I was rescued by a human who was having gender-identity issues and was looking for a therapy pet. My new owner’s name was Justin. Justin Chase. They and her mother, Marbles, took care of me until my old age.

One day, as my earthly demise approached, Justin said to me, “In case you’re wondering Mister Nino, we will understand if the day ever comes when you chose to no longer take meals or drink water. It will be a mature, respectable decision…entirely rational for a senescent dog.”

I eventually turned fourteen. That’s 98 in human years. I had difficulty walking. Joint problems. Chronic pain. My teeth were bad. My sense of smell was nearly gone. My new owners were kind, doting, understanding. I was an only dog. I no longer relieved myself indoors. I never stopped taking meals or drinking water and was not sure if my best moments awaited me in doggy heaven, but one thing was for certain: in my old age I had long since stopped dreaming of running and howling with a pack of coyotes, and could therefore meet my maker saying I had become a far more tranquil and peaceable dog than I had ever been before.