So you want to know what breed I am. Well I wasn’t around when it was decided but from what I’ve been told, in the beginning there was a cocker spaniel who met up with a schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle) or a schnauzer who hooked up with a cockapoo, or a poodle who met a schnocker in a blind alley but my favorite explanation (yes I’m a dirty old man) is a cocker spaniel, a poodle and a schnauzer – well I won’t go there but I know you humans have an imagination. No matter how it all came to pass I turned out to be a cockerschnoodle, so I’m told.
Some very nice people took my inheritance and gave me to a family with 2 young girls who I could tell were a bit untamable but that was very attractive to me. I don’t remember much of my puppyhood but I’ll never forget the day I met the mommy I was here to rescue. You see, those girls got older and wilder. They would let me dart out of the house and run around the yard but they didn’t close the gate or fix the holes in the fence.
It was a beautiful day when I was galavanting around the neighborhood and thought I would go direct traffic in the intersection of 2 main roads around the block. What could happen to me. Two sides had stop signs and the other road had a few hundred yards of visibility so of course anyone who saw me would slow down and follow my commands. You don’t have to be Pavlov’s dog to figure this out. A big white car pulled off the road and this nice lady opened her window I think to ask for directions but I was focussing on the spiffy, red sports car that just stopped at the stop sign. With all my masculine charms, I wagged and pranced until this Spyder pulled over and opened her door. I jumped right into her web. Before she could devour me she felt it necessary to find out a little more about me since I wasn’t wearing my dog tags, I was a bit randy and my dysfunctional family never got me one of those exquisite chips that the NSA would realign a satellite to locate me.
My spyder lady drove up and down some streets looking from side to side and not watching where she was driving. I was getting a wee bit nervous. Finally she gave up and she did something real strange. She started driving back towards the big city where she had just come from. I tried not to project what was happening but I was hoping that we were going to go to a Starbucks for a puppaccino and pupscotti. Well this big city didn’t have a Starbucks. Instead she pulled into a spa and carried me in to ask if any of the lovely ladies recognized me. I thought I was the center of the universe for a moment until they said, we don’t know who he is but he is so cute and someone must be missing him. No don’t say that!
Back into the spyder we go and now she’s driving further away from the big city to, oh my, that place I was taken once where they put a pole in my butt, pulled it out and looked at it as if it were a rare gem. It must have been because they smiled and then took out a very long sharp thin object that they stuck in my foreleg while speaking in a squeaky voice that reminded me of the happy and carefree days I spent tumbling with my brothers and sisters. I’m thinking I’m toast but she does the same thing she did at the spa. I didn’t recognize any of them and the feeling was mutual but I think I was really lucky because the one squeaky lady who knew me wasn’t in that day.
Back into the web we retraced our drive to the intersection. My soon to be mommy looked perplexed and anguished. She drove across the road and then she saw THAT GUY who always walks the streets like me. Why did he have to be out this afternoon? I thought, oh no, I’m going to lose my seat. I calmed down because she didn’t open the door, just the window, and then my heart stopped because THAT GUY said I lived around the corner in the gray house!!! I tried to be as cute and cuddly as possible jumping onto her lap and resting my chin on the window ledge. She spun the spyder around and headed for the ugly gray house with those humans who think I’m a tennis ball.
Outside the house were several munchkins screaming and running around. I’m not normally like this but I tried to be the boss. As she carried me out of the web I clawed her supple chest so deeply but she was stronger than me. The screaming munchkins turned toward me and yelled, “that’s our dog.” Come on, I’m not a dog. Didn’t I convince anyone of that over the past hour of traipsing around the city. I could tell my soon to be mommy was not at all pleased with the commotion but how could she take me away from these innocent young children. I guess she had to do something motherly so she told them to get me a collar with some ID. Then she and her spiffy spyder drove off into the sunset.
Exactly a month later I took my chances and headed back to the intersection. I could feel the vibrations of the 5-speed mid-engine red spyder coming toward the stop sign. There she was. I didn’t have to do anything cute. She immediately pulled over and let me jump in. I was so happy until she turned down the street heading to the haunted gray house. What a relief, no one was home. Okay, Okay let’s get out of Dodge! She started fumbling for a piece of paper and a pen and wrote some kind of thank you note to the dysfunctional family and then we drove off into the sunset.
I thought what a life. Quiet, cool, gourmet food, my own bed, and then this long legged blonde came home. I think she was worried about how he would react to seeing another man in the house. I was proud to see that she learned some of my tricks and mustered up her feminine guiles, strutting, squeaking, stroking and finally long legged blonde who she called sweetie smiled. I would like to say the rest is history but it really is still her-story.
I must have had the first full night sleep I’ve had in my 3 years. I rolled out of bed and she hooked me up to this neck brace with a long string. What was I supposed to do? Well I let her take the lead. We walked around her neighborhood and I became intoxicated by the panoply of pooch parfums and consumed as much of that sweet green carpet that I could. Then we went for a drive. This time she found a Starbucks but I could tell it just wasn’t coffee withdrawal that made her seem a bit agitated. She was waiting for something to happen and wrestling with something very important in her mind. She confided to me that if she could think of a clever name for me that would appeal to her scientist husband that may be he would agree to me moving in. But she kept drawing a blank. The words had too many syllables or were too difficult to spell. Apparently sweetie is challenged in that area.
Without warning this piercing annoying noise started and her pocketbook started shaking. I thought it was an earthquake or something. Frantically she plunged her hand toward the noise maker and said Hello. It didn’t take a yoctosecond for me to hear the voice of my dysfunctional mother. I was so dejected I had no energy to do anything cute. I kept still and quiet while my princess started to repeat, oh yes, no problem, I can do that, I’m so sorry, I understand, don’t worry and by the way, what’s his name? If I could make lightning strike, move the earth or drop bacon from heaven I would have because I knew I had finally achieved my existential purpose of rescuing this family that drove cars too young for their age, who had these weird rituals of sitting together for meals, and regaled me with a treasure trove of domination, submission and other toys I could orally fixate on.
Sorry I got a little sidetracked thinking about that moment. So you want to know my name do you. Well, I never witnessed a smile so wide, a laugh so deep and a tear so sweet, when she heard my name, CHAOS (she changed it from Kaos thank you very much.) Without even taking a breadth she called Sweetie in the sky and told him my name and I could hear his joy. Now sweetie always wanted a big dog. I’m just 20 pounds but I’m scientific proof that great things come in small packages.
And the rest is HERSTORY!
Dementia Diplomacy 