46
» march Z. 2003
HUMOR
Puppy love
E very dog has its gay
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en are dogs. I must confess I’ve
never understood this expression,
although I’ve know n lots of gay guys
who are real hitches. N o t to m en
tion a good num ber who like to sniff each
o th e r’s butts.
But to liken men to dogs is, well, kind of
insulting to dogs, I think. Sure, dogs drool, they
smell, they eat cat ptxip if you let them, hut
nowhere else will you find the kind of un
conditional devotion they can give you.
Full disclosure: 1 am a canine lover. Dog
hair is a food group in my house. But what you
don’t know is that my dog is a superhero.
You w ouldn’t know it
to lcxik at him. Despite
^¡Jur*****
being nam ed after a
tank, Sherm an is
actually just a 10-
pound, black
and white
Pekingese,
about the
size of a well-
fed cat. W hen
h e ’s asleep in a
co m er he could
easily he m istak
en for an electric
shoe polisher.
You see, my partner
and I aren ’t like those
outdoorsy gay guys who
try to hutch it up by owning
dogs usually associated with les
bians— dogs like black Labs and
golden retrievers. N o, my friends, Floyd
and 1 are of that vanishing breed of queens
who will never own a large dog because its
wagging tail might knock over the
Steuben.
Pekingese are classified as “toy”
dogs, and I understand why. Sherman is
less a dog in the “sit/stay/heel” sense of the
word and more like a stuffed animal with a cir
culatory system. W ith his big, round eyes and
shmushed-in face, he reminds me of Gizmo in
Gremlins.
But he’s a superhero, all right. H e’s Sher
man, the Amazing Vomiting Dog. H e’s less
likely to “go fetch" than “go retch,” and his
barf is definitely worse than his bite.
W hat’s more, the very moment he’s emp
tied the contents of his stomach, the first thing
he does is run to his dish for more.
“He’s just excitable,” Floyd says.
"No, he’s just bulimic,” I say.
1 blame myself, of course. If I weren’t so
weight-obsessed, I’m sure Sherman would real
ize he’s just fine the way he is.
But my dog is not a likely candidate for
superherodom. Not only did he flunk obedi
ence school, hut he was rejected as a stud
puppy because his legs were too long. (Only in
the bizarre world of dog shows would 4 inches
he considered too long.)
Sherman does pull his weight, however—all
10 pounds of it. For the five years that Floyd
and I had our business, Sherman came to work
with us. His job was to greet customers and he
adorable— a task for which he is infinitely well
qualified.
W hile most custom ers loved him , we did
discover th at very observant Muslims would
refuse to step in the door until Sherm an had
been locked in hack. A pparently in Islam
dogs are considered unclean, and com ing
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
b y M a r c A c ito
into the slightest c o n tact w ith them means
you must re-perform your ablutions.
W ith the current state of heightened alert, I
say forget about arming airline pilots; let’s just
park a Pekingese in front of the cockpit dexir
and call it done.
ompared to your typical bomb-sniffing
rescue dog (or even my friend’s mutt
who can fetch a beer from the fridge),
Sherman doesn’t appear to he gixxl for
much. But he did save Floyd’s life.
Floyd was infected with HIV in 1984
and for more than a decade remained
asymptomatic. But in 1995 his health
began to deteriorate rapidly. A t the
time AZT was the primary drug
available, hut its toxicity
only made him more ill, so we were faced
with the grim prospect of a long, debilitating
gixxlbye.
Floyd slept through most of what we’ve
come to refer to as the “W inter of our Dis
content”— sometimes as much as 16 hours a
day— partly out of depression, hut mostly
because he was frail and weak.
But then the Sherm inator came to his res
cue. T he moment that hall of fluff came rolling
into our lives, Floyd’s health immediate
improved; despite utter fatigue, he wanted to
get out of bed in the morning just so he could
know what the little puppy was doing. He
wanted to hold him and brush him and play
with him. I’m not exaggerating when I say it
gave him the will to live.
A nd he’s not alone. In a study of 150 car
diac patients, for instance, 7 percent of those
who did not own a dog died within the first
year, compared with only 1 percent of those
who did.
O f course, the triple cocktail became avail
able that spring and as the earth awoke from its
winter slumber so did Floyd— returning to new
life and blossoming again. But we both know
that he was rescued by that little dog.
I told you he was a superhero.
And that, my friends, is T he Gospel
According to Marc. J H
M a r c A c it o would like to hear about your canine
superheroes. Write him at marcadto@cutbi.com.