I Hate Your Dog
By Brad Pike
Remove this creature from my lap. Remove it now. Remove it before it assaults me with its diseased oral cavity. Its mouth has goop dripping — goddammit, it got my face. Get me a towel before its wretchedness seeps into my pores and infects the underlying anatomical mechanisms; the burning sensation must be my DNA mutating into malignant cancerous forms. The seed of my death fertilized by doggy saliva.
And now you laugh, you laugh at how your animal has drenched me in its fluid. How hilarious. I’ll laugh too: ha ha ha, it’s so adorable how your dog lunged at me, invaded my personal space, and then washed my glorious visage in smelly dumpster juice. Laughing at a violation of my dignity is a great way to nourish our relationship for years to come, you species defector. Thanks so much for taking responsibility for your creature’s indiscretion, particularly when this is a first date. I’m sure this affront by your creature hasn’t negatively shaped my early impression of you as a human being.
To be clear, I hate your dog. Some people hate racism, genocide, or child abuse, but me, I hate your dog. Its fur is too short to pet, like petting a kiwi or an old man’s testicle, and yet it shoves its repulsive body into your face, demanding to be petted in the aggressive style of the seasoned date rapist. Often, it turns its body around and presses its butt into your arm, rubbing, thrusting, prodding, insisting you scratch its butt. You might look away, might ignore its pleas for butt abrasion, but it’s not smart enough to be deterred. It merely prods harder for butt caresses. Unacceptable behavior for a creature of any kind; being a dog is no excuse for this lasciviousness.
For God’s sake, pull it away from me! It keeps returning to my vicinity even after I push it back. This is the universal signal for “DOES NOT WANT,” creature! Get back!
Did your creature devour a bologna factory? Was the one ring forged in its chest cavity? Is your creature a secret hellmouth, a portal to some demonic dimension where sinners boil eternally in their own excrement? No? Then why does your creature smell so bad? Its body emits the aroma of a slaughterhouse on a hot summer day, and then it takes its tongue and applies the very essence of this stench to the skin directly beneath my olfactory sensor. Then once my faculties are assaulted with horror, I’m expected, not to puke or bleed from the eyes, but to laugh and rub the creature’s head, to say, “Awww.” No, I refuse. Seal this creature in a room far from my presence, or I’m heading to Popeye’s without you, lady.
Look at its body: tiny and round, a soft egg shape due to excessive feeding. It scampers around like the monsters from Critters, like a rodent, like Salacious Crumb. Its eyes consume over three quarters of its face, and its mouth hangs open in a ceaseless idiot grin, always breathing so loudly you can’t hear yourself think. What did you say, lady? You don’t like Popeye’s? Too spicy? I can’t hear because your creature’s respiratory system/wind tunnel/Blue Angels air show drowns out all other noise. Also, they have mild strips if you have the palate of a damn fetus. You idiot. You’re making this date even worse.
‘How could you hate my dog? Look at how cute he is!’ Really? I mean, listen to yourself. Your dog is an atrocity, a genetic abomination designed to mimic the characteristics of the human infant in order to trigger oxytocin release, you sad deluded husk of a woman. We took wolves, and — AGAINST GOD’S WILL — twisted and warped their genes through selective breeding until we have this sad mutant, incapable of surviving on its own. Your dog is cute in the way the creature from Splice was sexy. If I was a psychologist, I would demand you confront and acknowledge that a pet decision was driven by reproductive anxiety.
What I’m saying is: your dog doesn’t love you. It’s displaying what biologists call “opportunistic, manipulative behavior.” It doesn’t feel happy, sad, guilty, loyal, or sentimental; you’re merely anthropomorphizing its behavior. What you understand as emotion is cold adaptive instinct formed over 15,000 years. You’re being a dumb idiot, lady. I mean, did you think All Dogs Go To Heaven was a documentary? Air Bud would’ve left Josh for the mean clown in a heartbeat if the clown had a bag of beef in its pocket because it’s a dog, and dogs care about food, not people.
Stop crying! God, you’re being so stupid right now! This is a bad start to the date, lady. We are not bonding romantically, and it’s your fault. It’s like you don’t even want three strips and a biscuit, like you don’t care about three strips and a biscuit, like you’re allowing your hideous creature to sabotage our emotional connection and thus deliberately ruining your chances of getting three strips and a biscuit — goddammit, why does this horrible creature keep assaulting me every time I say biscuit?