I figured some of you would like to know a little bit more about Lulu's life pre-cancer. So this is the first of, who knows how many, parts chronicling Lulu's life.
Lulu and I met over 12 years ago when I was just a wee camper at Gunning Creek Adventures. Two months prior, the camp Rottweiler had once again had a love affair with the Australian Shepherd up the road and neither of them had taken sex ed in obedience school. In late May she gave birth to, if I remember correctly, six pups. Lulu was the runt, which made her different from the rest and hence a must-have (god forbid I have a regular old dog!)
I spent weeks and weeks laboriously writing letters to my father, guaranteeing full responsibility of the dog. I called him as many times as the camp owners would let me, and if email had existed at the time you better believe I would have spammed the shit out his inbox with digital photos. In the end I didn’t need to do anything because my father is a sucker. One look at the bread loaf-sized mutt and he said, "Put her in the car. Mom's gonna kill us."
Mom didn't kill us. Instead she insisted on the name Lulu. I don’t remember what I wanted to name the dog, but it was probably something pop culture related. Ugh, can you imagine? She could have been Donna Martin, or even Paula Abdul! My mom had made the mistake once by letting me name our cat Max, an ode to the late 80’s computer-generated Max Headroom (um yeah, I was a cool kid).
For three years we lived with my parents as I finished high school and prepared for college. In that time Lulu graduated obedience school, but also found the time to tear up my mother’s rug during her first and only bout of the heat (the vet had suggested for health reasons she not be fixed until she biologically became “a woman”), and to attempt suicide during a snail bait binge.
During regular business hours, Lulu was also learning all about cats and how, unlike dogs, cats were much too civilized to be seen wrestling with a filthy mutt. Max and Misza, who were kings of the castle long before Lulu and reminded her of that daily, soon discovered the only way to be on equal footing with the dog was to be on a chair. The chair provided the appropriate height for face slapping. As soon as Lulu came too close, paws would fly at her face ninja style (no claws, mind you).
At first I thought this was a defense tactic, but I soon discovered the two cats were a grouchy, old team – similar to the bitchy Siamese felines of Lady and the Tramp – actually luring Lulu over only to bitch slap her. Being half Aussie, Lulu used her wit to seek revenge. While the chair gave the cats ideal slapping height, it also put them in perfect tail whipping range. Lulu, knowing she’d get yelled at if she purposely did anything to the cats, would innocently walk over to the chair, turn around, and look at you while she presented her rear to the cat. She’d wag her tail as if she was happy to see you, with each wag pushing the cat further and further off the chair. She’d wag her tail with more and more excitement, not because of you, but because she loved the sound her built-in whip made when she knocked those cats right off their chairs.
Comments