An ode to Hunter, replacement sibling and K-9 of my eye

Moments after my brother Gabe and I left the house, my parents had the brilliant idea of… Moments after my brother Gabe and I left the house, my parents had the brilliant idea of buying a pet as a replacement brother so Jonathan wouldn’t turn into some socially inadequate, loner transvestite. Like my dad says, “Loving a dog is like loving a very furry, very mentally challenged human.” So, we decided on a pooch. My pop is also a ridiculous, “let’s save half of a sugar packet” kind of miser, so he went for a $10 mutt from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: a problem-child Golden Retriever-Chowchow mix named Hunter.

We never really had a dog before, and I doubt my parents realized just how much that thing diarrheas and barfs out grass, so it’s a bit of an understatement to say the initial transition was anything but agreeable. He’d shed, he’d slobber, he’d hump anybody who started doing the Running Man dance move. Several times, Hunter – in a misplaced sense in protectionism – bit a few houseguests, and my Israeli mom tried to artfully convince them that it didn’t even happen:

Dave: F–k, Mrs. Rubin, your motherf–king dog just drew blood on my leg!

Mom: No he deedn’t. You prrro-boked heem and den you bit yourselv.

Another time, this bastard kid came to the house and fed Hunter two of those Chanukah chocolates that look like coins, golden foil and all. The dog liqui-crapped all over the house for the next three days and dragged his anus all over the kitchen floor, leaving behind cherry-chocolate streaks.

Fortunately, that never happened again. Hunter discovered his niche, and the family fell in love with this brain-deficient beastie. My father could constantly be found holding impassioned, one-sided conversations with the dog, since no one else wanted to listen to him. Once, Hunter went to town on my mom’s leg (she must’ve been doing the Cabbage-patch), and I guess that’s a good thing, since no one’s tried to hump her in years.

Without a doubt, some of the fondest times of my life were when Jonathan and I would take Hunter and his dog posse to a forest creek 20 minutes from our home. During every drive to this forest, there in a cramped ’91 Subaru Legacy brimming with four spastic, panting dogs, Leo – the 10-year-old Dalmatian – gets so excited that he grows an obnoxiously conspicuous dog boner. It just seems so strange, since Leo’s always grinning so manically. I mean, I like driving and I like getting boners, and I even like doing both on special occasions, but obviously not nearly as much as he does.

The excitement in that station wagon would be so explosive that, by the time we all made it to the forest, even Jonathan and I would be filled with dog-like elation, and we’d all spill out of the car – man and dog alike – in an Bacchanalia of sprinting about insanely with our tongues out, defecating in bushes, and assaulting any humans unlucky enough to get caught in our path.

Over the course of several years – after petting the dog; having the dog jump on you in greeting; having the dog stare intensely at your food; watching the dog pounce on squirrels or birds that are already dead; having the dog lick your hand, then putting your hand by your crotch, putting your other hand on top of the dog’s head and pretending he’s giving you blow – you come to love the dog. And it’s weird to love a dog, since it’s not even human, yet I ultimately find it a fulfilling relationship – as fulfilling as that time I won the Boy Scouts’ Pinewood Derby back in the third grade and was finally accepted as more than just the eye-patch kid. Either way, Hunter, if you’re reading this, I do love you, and I genuinely hope you never end up in a hamburger.

Ben Rubin thinks white babies are the ugliest. E-mail him at headpsychlo@yahoo.com.