Gone to the guard dogs
by George Jonas
National Post
February 6, 2010
What are you writing about this weekend?" a friend asked. Dogs, I replied. "No, seriously, is it the Middle East? Is it the Vancouver Olympics?"
Well, if you put it this way, it's both and neither. It's the $900 million that Canada's taxpayers will spend to prevent the Middle East from converging with the Olympics in Vancouver.
"Is $900 million what the winter games will cost?"
No, that's not what the games will cost. I don't know what the games will cost. We're talking solely about security: $900 million.
That's if all goes well, and Barack Obama isn't coming, only his VP. Because if Obama changes his mind and shows up in Vancouver, we're in a new ball game. If the phone rings the day before the opening ceremonies, and the Vice-President goes, "Biden here, boss," and Obama goes, "Sorry, Joe, Mr. Emanuel says I need the photo-op more than you," well, then it's going to be, like, goodbye $900 million, hello $1 billion.
The world is going to the dogs. That's fine by me. I've always liked dogs.
I was one of those kids in my native Hungary who had frogs and garter snakes in their pockets. I had a soft spot for cats, bats and beetles, but especially dogs. They didn't have to be nice dogs, either. Hissy certainly wasn't. Almost no one got on with Hissy, except Horny and I.
A sandy-coloured bitch of indeterminate age and breed, she was the official guard dog for the family distillery. A junkyard dog is mean, but it isn't a patch on a distillery dog, and most distillery dogs weren't a patch on Hissy. She exuded malice -- literally, because she didn't bark or growl but expelled her breath like a king cobra, which is why she got to be called Hissy. She was so plainly vicious that when she fixed her red-rimmed eyes on the object of her displeasure and emitted a hiss, no man or beast ever stood up to her.
My mother said that Hissy maintained her foul mood by permanent pregnancy. Her mate was the other distillery dog, named Horny (what else?). He was Hissy's own offspring from her first litter. Horny was as good-natured as his mother was mean. His Oedipus complex only made him more outgoing. It was a mystery why Hissy tolerated him because she tolerated none of her pups after about 12 weeks.
My mother thought Horny was too dumb to notice how menacing Hissy was; he simply mounted her, as he mounted everything that moved and some things that no longer did. "I've known men like this," my mother said.
Once Horny tried to mount a Mecklenburgian, one of the huge brewery horses, and a gelding at that. Horny pitched his woo to the equine's hind leg, and when the Mecklenburgian kicked him, he tried the other leg. The contest between Hungarian ardour and Mecklenburgian modesty led to a commotion in the yard. The driver took a whip to Horny, which the good-natured dog viewed as an amorous move. He wagged his tail, as if to say: "Okay, let me finish what I'm doing first; your turn is next." However, her boyfriend being threatened made Hissy hopping mad and she chased the driver into an empty barrel. Once secure in his stronghold, the driver shouted imprecations at the reptilian canine, but not being able to see out of his bunker, he kept it up long after Hissy got bored, curled up in front of the barrel and went to sleep.
For some reason, Hissy tolerated me. Maybe she sensed a kindred spirit, mother used to say whenever she was miffed with me.
Once, when Hissy's new litter was about three weeks old, I crawled under the shed to play with the pups. Hissy lied on the sack where she had whelped and paid no attention to me, but the yard boss became worried about my safety and tried to pull me away. As he reached for me, Hissy got to her feet with a menacing hiss. Stuck under the shed, the yard boss was at her mercy.
I was about four at the time. "Oh, suddup, Hissy," I lisped at the illtempred bitch -- and, for some reason, shut up she did. She lay back on her sack, letting the yard boss withdraw. It was a gracious gesture. Don't let anyone tell you dogs don't know about the importance of saving face.
Anyway, whether you like dogs or not, the world is going to them. When you're obliged to be at an airport two hours before boarding a plane for a one-hour flight, it has gone to them already
When a U.S. President contemplating a $1.56 trillion deficit can't find room for America's manned space exploration -- NASA's Constellation program is cut from Obama's 2011 budget request made to Congress this week -- we know the world is going to the dogs. Moreover, it's distillery dogs that inherit the Earth, Hissy and Horny, not housebroken dogs, and definitely not the meek in spirit.