Saturday, July 28, 2007

The Call of Old What’s-His-Name

My benefactor has a dog, a white dog, and darned if he doesn’t make me recall that loyal old what’s-his-name in “Call of the Wild.” He’s a lot more wild than tame too, that’s for sure. I can’t pronounce his name, but it’s Thai for “dirty dog.” He comes to me now whatever I call him because I am generous with chicken bones, after I am through with them that is, dogs are so easy.

He’s a healthy looking dog, a sturdy, muscular 45 pounds or so, with a powerful neck and jaws. He is a white dog, also like old what’s-his-name. I say healthy looking, healthy except for the fact that he has no balls.

I don’t mean to say that he lacks courage. He’ll charge even the largest chicken in the local field. He only shies away from the bulls, which after all is probably a good idea. I mean that, literally, he has no balls. He’s not fixed; they don’t do that here. He just got cheated, or maybe it’s like the English music hall song (if I may paraphrase), “and when they said testicles, he thought they’d said spectacles, and he said, oh! I’ll have none of those.”

I observed him during the recent dog mating interval, and his technique with female dogs was very simple: he ignored them completely. I saw a very attractive, young, good sized female come a’ calling one day. She stood about 15 yards away for a while, then slowly approached. He stood up and quietly stood still. She approached and it seemed to me like she smelled his breath, that was a new one on me. Then she moved along his body so they could get a snoot-full of each other. She moved away and smelled around his bowl; it was empty at the time. She did all this unmolested. She kept her dignity as she walked away but I’m sure that she was quite humiliated.

Our reticent champion prefers cavorting with other, even less dominant dogs. If they are sufficiently obsequious, or perhaps crippled in some way, he can be quite a bully.

No, old unpronounceable has either stunted testicles, or undeveloped testicles, or undescended testicles, but for whatever reason he just has a little flap of skin with nothing in it. He doesn’t seem to miss them. I suppose most men wouldn’t either if they’d never had them in the first place.

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