Keeping Up with the Belks

(I am about to blog about my dog.  Rhyme! For those of you who think that is lame or so not even about Charlotte, you can bite me.  Or, my dog can bite you.)

The biggest problem with being anonymous is that no one recognizes me in public.  If I just posted my name and my picture I wouldn’t run into situations like the one I’m about to describe below.  Because if I did come out of the anonymous blogger closet, all six billion of my readers out there would immediately recognize me in the real world and either a)behave appropriately or b)run in fear of my bitch cutting abilities. And what better reason to cut a bitch then for making fun of my crippled dog.

I never told you all the story of how Rasputin came into my life. But let’s just say he is a little different.  Like, penis-tail different.

I wanted a black Pekingese ever since I fell in love with Wednesday via the Girls Next Door (I know, I have impeccable taste in TV).  But I also really wanted to get a rescue dog.  I searched for months on petfinder until one day I spotted this face:

OMG. He was perfect.  I trekked down to Richardson Rescue in SC to visit and when they let him out of his pen he jumped right into my lap and rolled over.  I was in love.  But then I noticed something on his back.  It looked like, well, like a teeny tiny penis.

 It was his tail.  His naked, nubby little tail. 

Walking him I also noticed that the joint on his right hind leg bent outward.  He trotted on only 3 legs and when he ran the right leg flopped out to the side, like it was barely connected.  When I questioned the nice woman working there she told me that he had been run over by a car and his previous owner didn’t want to pay the medical bills.  So his injuries were left to heal on their own. This left his leg like this: 

artist interpretation

And his tail like this: 

Raspeentail

I spent an hour with Rasputin that first day struggling with what to do.  Take him home with the knowledge that he would someday cost me a lot in vet bills (that I probably wouldn’t be able to afford), or leave him at the rescue without a home.  I decided to take some time to think about it. When I handed the leash back to the nice woman she said “Looks like mommy’s not taking her baby home today.” It broke my heart.

 An hour later I was back at my apartment crying like a little girl.  The next weekend I was back in South Carolina to get him.   

When we were going over his medical history, it was brought to my attention that he had been there for over a year.  The story was always the same.  People would see his face and come down, then they would see his tail and leave.  Just like I had. In three years he had spent most of his life injured or at the rescue.  Now he was coming home with me.

I know, right? Meck brought the little crippled doggie home and they all lived happily ever after.  Not exactly.  Because it’s hard to truly live happily ever after when the asshole residents of Charlotte make a point of making fun of my dog.

 The first snub happened in the first 24 hours I had him.  I was taking him on an extra long walk through fourth ward to get him acquainted with his new neighborhood and so he could begin marking his new “territory”. We were passing by McNinch house where a crowd of people were drinking wine on the lawn.  There was a blonde woman with two corgis in front of us as we passed the restaurant.  A couple of older ladys who were sipping white approached the fence.  They looked from the corgis, to Rasputin, and then back to the corgis. The first women said rather loudly, aren’t those the cutest dogs you have ever seen?!  She pointed to the corgis. Their owner beamed with pride. And then she looked back at Rasputin and whispered something to her friend. Poor little guy.

The most recent incident happened a couple weeks ago walking Rasputin past Alexander Michael’s on an otherwise pleasant Sunday afternoon.  A group of twenty-somethings seated by the front window were staring at him as he did the three-legged hobble up 9^th street.  When he got closer to the window they burst out laughing.  All at once. Still staring.  And I could hear them through the glass. It broke my heart.

Of all the people who stop me to talk about him, 5% gush over his teddy bear face and the other 95% ask what the heck is wrong with him. Now I know dogs aren’t people (although Rasputin would argue otherwise).  And I know he can’t understand that you are judging him. But I can, and it bugs me.  

So don’t laugh at anyone’s dog, because you never know when that woman walking him might be me(ck).  And being thrown through a glass window aint’ pleasant.