A Tail Told by JD

I was nervous when I opened the door and walked into the unobscure looking building that had "Dogaholics Anonymous" scrawled on the outside window.

As I approached the secretary, she was nibbling on a dog biscuit and vigorously scratching behind her ear with a six-inch spiked heel--with her foot still in it.

"Whaddya want?" she barked at me.

"Uh, I think I may need to join your group here. This is Dogaholics Anonymous?" I asked.

"That's what the sign says, muttface," she replied, spitting crumbs of dog biscuit in my general direction. "Sit! Sit! I need to ask you a few questions."

Sat, I did--and almost in a perfect "front."

"What are your favorite colors?" she asked.

"Black and rust," I replied.

"Why?" she sneered.

"Because those are the colors of my Doberman and German Shepherd," I answered.

"Let me see your hands," she ordered. "What's that under you fingernails?"

"Dirt. Dirt from my backyard where I go out and help my dogs dig to China and back looking for old bones, rawhides, the keys to my pickup and my favorite Boxcar Willie Yodels Dolly Parton CD."

"Wiseguy, huh? Wanna rolled up newspaper slapped across your ugly mug?"

"No ma'am," I cringed, while considering whether or not to submissively urinate to show her how badly I needed Dogaholics Anonymous.

"See this spiked collar I'm wearing? I'll slap you across the eyes with it if you get smart with me. Now, let's continue. How many bathrooms at your house?"

I was counting in my head. "Uh, seventeen," I said.

"SEVENTEEN?!? Are you outa your flea-bitten mind? How do you have seventeen bathrooms?" she screeched.

"Actually," I said, "it's seventeen and a HALF. And it's simple. we have two and a half bathrooms in the house, and fifteen trees in our backyard. Sometimes I go and whizz on one of those trees when I'm bonding with the dogs or I get lost in the middle of the night and put the dogs in one of our bathrooms and I end up outside in theirs."

"OK, OK," she muttered, "sorry I asked, but it IS on the questionnaire. Now, your favorite style of dishware?"

"Stainless Steel."

"Your favorite food?"

"Lamb and rice, beef and rice, chicken and rice, ground hamburger."

"Your favorite clothing material?"

"Rawhide."

"Your favorite decorative ornament for your front yard?"

"Fire hydrant--neon orange with a strobe light on top."

"Favorite song?"

"You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog."

She suddenly stopped and went into another scratching fit. A remarkably limber woman I noticed.

"Any cosmetic surgery?" she continued, pulling out another dog biscuit and nibbling the corner off of it.

"Yeah, I'm thinking of seeing a plastic surgeon to have my ears shaped so that they're a little more pointed. I had a butt job ten years ago and had my little toe-nails removed after I kept snagging them on the corner of the bed," I rattled off from memory.

"Sicko," she smirked. "How much of the alphabet do you know?"

"A-K-C, C-D-X, S-C-H, U-D-X."

"Count for me, flea-bait," she snarled through bared teeth.

"Schutzhund ONE. Schutzhund TWO. Schutzhund THREE."

"Keep going."

"That's as far as I can count," I replied.

"Well," she belched, pushing herself away from her cluttered desk, "I think Dogaholics Anonymous may be just the place for you. You'll probably find this hard to believe, but I've been here several years myself."

"Great! How did you happen to join DA?" I asked.

"See this Pug-like nose I got?" she replied.

"Yeah, it's really pushed into your face. What happened?"

"I was chasing parked cars one day, and caught one."

"Any advice for me?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "Don't whiz on an electric fence."

Good advice.

--JD (chapter member of Dogaholics Anonymous)

Copyright © 1998, 2001 by J.D. Kinman. Reprinted with permission of the author.