Bad to the Bone:. Bo Hoefinger
have been a lot of firsts over the past several months. The latest being the Christmas holiday. I was looking forward to it, but not as much as your mother. In fact she was so excited about decorating the Christmas tree, she could hardly contain herself.”
I understood her excitement, for I enjoyed decorating trees, too. I suspect, though, my mother and I might have a difference of opinion on what one should use to decorate said Christmas tree.
My father carried on. “Unfortunately, on the day your mother decided to trim the tree, I had already made other arrangements to go out. Although I knew this did not sit well with her, I foolishly left to attend to my plans anyway.
“Your mother was so upset with this, it caused her to put in motion a most devious plan. A plan with long-term implications and one that would provide her companionship during the holiday season for years to come.
“That’s right, Bo, her plan was to adopt a dog.”
Well, at least now I knew who the smarter of the two is.
“When I returned from my errand late that night…”
My mother finally spoke up. “Tell him what the ‘errand’ was, honey.”
In a lowered, sheepish tone he indulged her request. “When I returned from watching the football game with the guys, it was very cold in the house. Your mother didn’t speak to me for two days.
“Just when I was beginning to think she’d never speak to me again, she called me at the office.
“‘Do you have anything you want to say to me?’ she asked.
“I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything at all. That’s when I heard a dog bark in the background. So I asked your mother where she was.
“Your mother replied, and I might add, rather abruptly, ‘I’m at the animal shelter. I’m adopting a dog to keep me company. You know, to provide me a little companionship, to help me around the house, to have something that I can count on. Some of the things I have been missing in my life.’
“Then she laid down the law, Bo. She said, ‘So, if you want any input into what kind of dog we get, I suggest you get your butt over here. Otherwise, you’ll just have to leave it up to me to pick out a good one.’
“Well the wheels of destiny had been set in motion. I raced to the shelter. Once I saw you, I knew you were the one.”
He lowered his head, put it up against mine, and kissed me, as if to take credit for my release from canine prison.
I sat there, astounded by the story I had just heard.
There was no wise decision making behind adopting me. I wasn’t chosen out of love, or to bring joy into someone’s heart, as so many of my former cage mates had been. No, I was adopted as a reminder to my father that my mother, and her feelings, must always come first.
Simply stated, I was a revenge adoption.
Part One
In the Beginning…
CHAPTER 1
Of All the Gin Joints in All the World…
We met back in the early ’90s, December of ’92 to be exact. I just had a major blowout with my first, somewhat dysfunctional family and decided that it was best for all if I just left. My foster dad gave me a ride to nowhere and before I knew it, I was at a boarding house in upstate New York. The place was great, warm with plenty of company, and their cheesy poof biscuits were to die for. On the downside, it was loud and smelly, not unlike me.
Even a lowly pug could smell her coming from miles away. It was Monday, as I recall, and the bells on the door jingled to announce her arrival. She was a beautiful blonde with a quick smile and a determined look. We’d seen this type before; they usually left with one of the pure-bred puppies, but something was different about this one. My instincts told me that any canine would be darn lucky to go home with a girl like her, so I made it my top priority to be that hound.
She wandered back to where we lived. Frankly, I was a bit embarrassed about the condition of the place. Some of my cage mates were not very clean and some even took to pooping where they ate. My next-cage neighbor’s lack of etiquette was particularly noteworthy as he took to eating kitty snickers (that’s slang for cat poo in the big house) openly. Sure they taste good, but you’re not getting adopted if you’re seen eating one.
As she came closer to my humble accommodations, I tried everything I could to grab her attention. When she finally got to me I made direct eye contact with her, tilted my oversized cranium at a forty-five degree angle, and gave her my trademark BoPaw reach.
I could see instantly she wanted me. Needed me. Had to have me. Hey, who wouldn’t?
She reached out and petted me with her finely manicured nails. She was clearly enjoying our encounter. How easy these humans are to manipulate, I thought. Her hands were refreshingly cool and her smell put me in a state of delight. I was in love. I could tell she loved me, too.
After a few gushing, “He’s so cute!” comments, she gave me one last look and proceeded on to Pumpkin’s cage.
Realizing I was still sitting there with a half-cocked head and a paw in the air, I felt my muzzle glow red hot under my furry face as the other dogs chuckled with delight. Hey lady, we just made a connection. You can’t move on. Our story ends here if you keep going. But that’s exactly what she did. By the time I regained my bearings, she had moved through the room, out the door, and out of my life.
My hope for a better life was gone as quickly as it had come. The brief glimpse of a finer existence with a loving, caring human was replaced with the stark reality that I might spend the rest of my life at this boarding house. What was once a fun and refreshing place became a dark and daunting cave.
I admit this brush with love, and the subsequent loss of it, had me thinking of ending things in this world. I had heard the stories of the different ways to get to rainbow bridge, but I knew that if I were going to get there, there was only one canine to whom I could turn.
His given name was Charlemagne Brutus the IV, but he was better known in the big house as the Candyman. His studded dog collar betrayed an otherwise noble and tame appearance. He was well connected, and his lifestyle was proof of that. C’man slept on the best blankets, drank from the shiniest bowls, and rarely took to begging for human food.
I approached Candyman during exercise time in the yard. While the other dogs were working on their begging routines, he let on to me that he had a shipment of Hershey’s dark chocolate candy bars on the way. For the right price he would let me have them. I knew, as did he, chocolate will kill a canine quicker than a game of “chase the cat” in traffic. Yeah, that quickly.
Death by chocolate, as it is commonly referred to in the restaurant business, was only two Hershey’s bars away for me. Once ingested, I would soon be patrolling the pearly gates of heaven, looking, of course, for a place to dig out. Paradise awaited me.
But the price was steep; a greenie and a peanut butter–filled Kong for the candy bars. I had no money and I was unemployed, so I resigned myself to the situation at hand. At least death would come seven times faster than it does for others on this lonely, desolate planet.
I lowered my already slouched body onto the well worn blanket covering the cage’s tin floor. Surely there was another way out of this situation.
I lay there, thinking about my options. Maybe during exercise time I could climb the fence and escape? I would be free again. The trouble was the shelter workers were on high alert ever since Hairy Houdini, the border-collie mix, escaped last month. Maybe I could steal the German shepherd’s treats. Surely, once Ruger found out, he’d give me the business end of a chewy shiv. Hmmm, that sounds a little too painful.
Maybe if I…
I