I Want to Kill the Dog by Richard M. Cohen Read Free Book Online

we are left supporting the local economy.
    “Why don’t you leave him out and let him pretend he is a dog?” I ask. “You are a broken record,” she responds. Jasper prefers sounding off from a corner of the couch in the family room.
    This is how smart the smart dog is. He routinely stands in front of our car and bites the license plate as we start to pull out of the driveway. He remains in front of the car as we pick up speed. A slip of the right foot would turn him into a pancake. At the last minute, Jasper steps aside and barks himself silly as we pull away.
    Smart.
    Jasper’s claim to a working brain comes because, after watching us push down on our horizontal door handle for years, he finally has learned to jump on it and use his weight to pop open the front door. The animal seems to be particularly fond of popping the door open on frigid winter days. My study sits directly up the stairs from that door. Instantly there is a subzero wind tunnel that I have to deal with.
    Going up and down stairs to close doors is hard for me because I have multiple sclerosis and walk with a cane. I move at a glacial pace and see glaciers forming as I head for the door. If that animal is so smart, why doesn’t he learn to shut the freaking door behind him? Jasper just sneers as I close the door. He knows I cannot catch him. I am just grateful he doesn’t pull the door open as soon as I get back upstairs.
    When he’s not attacking, the dog makes a show of not just ignoring me, but pretending I do not exist. I can walk by him, though if I get too close, the little darling growls under his breath and shows me his teeth. That is just his gentle gesture of contempt to remind me he is still here.
    When Meredith goes away on business, Jasper is beside himself. More than that, he is pissed off and expresses his displeasure by using the living room as his personal bathroom. You can’t flush a floor. Meredith calls and I calmly tell her the dog has enriched our lives all over the living room.
    We raised three children. Who needs a dog that acts out? You guessed it: Not me.
    Meredith has traveled the world and left me alone with the kids. She trusted me, and if she had qualms about passing the baton (mothers usually do), she did not share them. But she does not trust me with Jasper when she leaves town. Meredith routinely checks on the dog’s health when she calls.
    Always, the same question finds its way into the mix at the end of the conversation: “By the way . . . how is Jasper?” I think she believes she will detect something in my voice if the dog is already suffering from a bad case of rigor mortis.
    My wife delights in telling anyone who will listen that Richard hates dogs. I do not hate all dogs. I like other people’s animals or those I cannot have. And I do not hate our dog. I hate the word
hate
. I do.
Hate
is imprecise and so overused. I just want Jasper to go away. “Run away, Scar,” Simba commands. “And never return.” That worked in
The Lion King
.
    Our dog, I mean Meredith’s dog, can lie peacefully in a comfortable position with a bed of rose petals under his head or in front of a moving dump truck for all I care. That is his choice, and I will defend his right to make it. But I am resigned to a basic reality. Jasper is here to stay.
    The dog will continue its annual ritual of scaring cute kids away on Halloween. The dog will keep shrieking at dawn, a special pleasure after a late night. Meredith will keep feeding Jasper leftover steak from the table so he can enrich our lives all over the place overnight. And best of all, Meredith will have to keep asking for Jasper’s permission to kiss me good-night. Unacceptable.
    And Jasper will live to bury me.
    Dogs are survivors, though according to Thomas Berger’s
Little Big Man,
they were a staple in the diet of Native Americans making their way across the Great Plains. I will not even bring up the common assumptions about Chinese restaurants. And yet dogs have