Disfigured

The dog seemed old from the time we got him, as if he was acting the part of an elderly man. At the shelter, they said probably two. The vet said likely four. This makes him, now, either sixteen or eighteen. He’s nearly blind and mostly deaf. Also, he’s got arthritis in his back legs, as well as a cough that’s due partially to an enlarged heart and partially to a collapsing trachea—a grotesque sound, somewhere between a honking goose and wet choking. He’s had epilepsy since we adopted him, which is controlled by a bucketful of daily medications. There’s a growth on his right hip, which he worries with his tongue and teeth. It looks like a wad of bubble gum that someone chewed and stuck on him: gruesome but benign. I tape a large bandage over it that ends up being even more of an invitation for him to rip it off, eat it, then lick the growth until it bleeds.

Ha ha, I imagine the dog saying in the voice that Jack and I pretend for him. Not dead yet.