PAGE 194 OF THE 276-PAGE MEMOIR OF A GOLDEN RETRIEVER NAMED CHEWY

By

Eric Feezell

"… which all culminated in a night of disturbingly homoerotic and arguably dangerous tug o’ war. It was madness, and I will never quite understand how I lived to relay the tale, just as I will never grasp Noam Chomsky, string theory, or sliding glass doors.

Not surprisingly, that marked the last time I’d ever see Rex or Brownie, and, honestly, although I still miss them with appreciable yearning, I’m probably the better for it now. By late into my fourth year - that’s 26 in human years - I began to realize that life was more than banal backyard fetching, hole-digging, and the occasionally successful leg-humping attempt. Call me a late bloomer. I am only thankful that I was fortunate enough to experience that epiphany. While the cowardly Rexes and Brownies of the world stayed back in their hometowns atrophying corporeally, dulling mentally, and barking idiotically at distant police sirens, I took to the road, sailing overseas and hitchhiking across Europe (in actuality, it was mostly just dog-paddling and running, respectively), and finally settling in Ireland. There I learned of and came to love (chewing upon) the works of the Irish Greats: Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Beckett. In an attempt to immerse myself culturally I shunned dog food, instead adopting with gusto the local cuisine, until hastily switching back to dog food one meal later.

All in all, I was reborn; I strove for personal fulfillment of the mind and spirit, and filled my tennis ball-sized brain with every ounce of knowledge and wisdom it could hold. This took about three days. Eventually, when the novelty of intellectualism faded, I became restless and spastic. Normal, in other words.

I quickly came to realize what was missing from my life: love. And not a platonic love such as that which, as a puppy, I had shared with Walter back in California (not including the one thing with the peanut butter when Walter got really drunk). No, what I sought was passion - an unfathomable and, dare I say, religious connection with another being. I needed a bitch. Immediately I went looking for love, and soon met an amazing Irish Setter named Miss Molly.

Oh, Miss Molly, the love of my life! Was she ever a beautiful lass! Long and brown, hairy and full of life. We met outside a dog park in Dublin, and it took only minutes before the two of us were thick as butt-sniffing thieves, cavorting over the verdant countryside seeking rodents to chase and greenery to soil. We were brought together by the bodies that govern the heavens (and by hypersensitive pheromone detection capabilities). I thought with all my heart and soul her love was true, until I discovered there was somebody else: a loathsome wiener dog named Pop-pop.

I was understandably heart-broken, and, not thinking clearly, vowed revenge on Pop-pop and Miss Molly. My psyche now completely unraveled, I devised an intricate murder scheme involving lethal doses of white chocolate and Jimson weed disguised undetectably in Bone Buddies rawhide chew sticks (Miss Molly, I knew, adored Bone Buddies). I was but steps away from carrying out my nefarious plan when my conscience and lack of opposable thumbs got the better of me. They were in love, I decided, and I would let them be. But I would not forget the few blissful days Miss Molly and I shared. Not for at least ten hours after the fact, when my associative memory would inevitably lapse.

Re-energized after our brief tryst, I soon realized a change was in order, and so I was off to France to give new meaning to the phrase oui oui ..."