Doin' my part to soften the Lounge... Meet Yokodawg and Nellybelly

It occured to me that I may be the only person on DU who has never posted pictures of his pets. I live in a house with 3 other people and we have a mini-zoo. Three-and-a-half cats : Willy Nelson, Boogerhead, Ludlow and a half of Amal. I guess I better explain the "half" cat before you call the ASPCA. Well, Ludlow is one of those male gangsta cats who lives to fight, and Amal got tired of his shit one day so she spends most of her time at some rich lady's house 2 streets up from mine, and still comes to visit occasionally. We also have two birds, Sidney and Buddy; Sidney is the vainest creature I've ever seen, and Buddy tragically loves to fuck with Sidney's hair do. And then there is the rabbit, Everett, the ultimate couch potato (when we bring him out of his cage, he runs right back in).

So, those are the pets. Now for the non-homo sapiens members of the household: two dogs, Yoko and Nelly. Those are their given names -- they are better known as "Yokodawg" and "Nellybelly". Yoko just turned 6 in April, and Nelly turned 4 in December.

Here's Yoko:


Yoko is the smartest animal I've ever known. She singlehandedly invalidates all traditional notions of what animal intelligence is. On the one hand, she has the heart of a wolf: she is very territorial and protective, and she loves with that selfless, infinitely passionate love of a canine; she adores chasing sticks and feeling her teeth bite into a bloody piece of meat. She's outraged by the sheer brazeness of the mailman who keeps coming back even though every day, when she's done repelling his onslaught, she adds: "...and I don't ever want to see you here again!!!" (on Saturdays she must be more intimidating than on other days of the week). But at the same time, those instincts are subsumed by her concsiousness; she has an awareness that is higher than her instincts. If you put a piece of meat right in front of her feet and say "Nooo, don't touch it", she will turn her head away so that she doesn't have to look at it. If somebody brings a kitten into the house, she will do her best to go to another room so that she is not tempted by her instincts, even as her lip is doing that Elvis curl that she can't help.

She is also a proud lady with manners. She believes that love includes respect. She would die for us, but that doesn't mean that she allows us to treat her just any way we want. Once you give her food to put into her mouth, there's no way in hell that she will give it back -- and on the flip side, she is more than reluctant to take something from my mouth, even as I try to give it to her that way. She doesn't allow to be picked up ("I ain't no fuckin' lap dog"), and she needs space when she's sleeping. She'll take an empty floor over sharing a bed any day.

Yoko is also an avid student. I know that my father must have thought that about me as well when he was giving me 40 math problems a day at age 5, but in Yoko's case, it's true... no, really. All I have to say is "Yokodawg, school" and she sits down, opens her eyes wide and perks up her ears to absorb every possible bit of infomation. She knows a million tricks, from pointing out with her paw which of my closed fists contains a cookie, to barking out "Hello", to bumping fists when I say "Respek", Ali G style. She has undeniable deductive intelligence: for example, in our house, the stairs are on the left side of the living room. She learned early on that "Upstairs!" means climbing those stairs. Then I took her to my parents' house, and when I said "Upstairs" she ran to the left side of the room and waited there... Then I showed her that in that house, stairs were behind the hallway. Then she deduced that "upstairs" means climbing stairs, not going to a certain side of the room; and from then on, "upstairs" has worked in any house.

My relationship with Yoko is definitely the most major influence on my personal view of the world and relationships between people in the last 5 years. Thanks to Yoko, I have a totally different view of the role of verbal communication and the usefulness of human intelligence than I did 5 years ago.

And as her student, I hope that one day I can come close to the level of fascination with the universe that she has. I hope that one day you'll find me with my body contorted in a completely uncomfortable pose just so I can stick my nose outside of the window and worship the spring.

This is Nelly:


Nelly is the baby of the house. She doesn't have an agressive or territorial bone in her body. As you're probably guessing, she thinks Yoko is the shit of all shits, and tries emulating her in every way possible, from barking at the mailman to chasing sticks. But while Yoko is "on duty" during the day -- she has to be downstairs and won't spend much time upstairs without getting nervous that the mailman may be in the bushes just waiting for a lapse in her attention -- Nelly only barks when she's around Yoko. She'll happily spend all day sleeping in my lap. She has a little bit of hound in her (they're both mutts, by the way), and her bark sometimes inadvertently transforms into a houl: "woo! woo! woowoooooooooo.." and then she gets embarassed and runs away from the window, with the face of a 14-year-old boy whose voice unintentionally broke into falsetto. When she catches a stick, she doesn't really know what to do with it, and her life is full of embarassing moments. Yoko is hard to impress, or so Nelly thinks.

She loves to be picked up and she loves sleeping in beds, and unlike Yoko, she loves to get on her back and offer up her belly for petting (hence "Nellybelly"). She's not as smart as Yoko -- hell, I'm not as smart as Yoko -- but she's the sweetest creature in the world.

I love dogs! :hi:

They are both beautiful and wonderful, and you are so very, very lucky to be loved by them, and they to be loved and cherished by you.

EDIT: I did not mean to ignore the rest of your wonderful menagerie. Your household sounds like it is always fun.

No hard feelings, I ignore them most of the time. :D My other housemates mostly take care of them.

SOunds like you have a great household!

bears a striking resemblance to one of my dogs, Roadie, whose heritage is a complete mystery to me. Wish I had a picture I could post so you could see they look like twins.

Roadie's sweet but she's, uh, determined. Very determined and definitely has her own opinion about how things should go. She's the youngest of the five dogs we have, but she's in charge. When I showed Nelly to my son, he agreed that she looks almost identical.

LOL, love your story about the houndog yowling scaring Nelly away from the window. Our dog was terrified of her own farts, and would run away from them with a sheepish look back to try and figure out where that horrible sound came from.

Yoko used to do that too when she was little. But since she's become a lady, she doesn't fart around people. :) I haven't heard her fart in years.

I betcha you don't have a cat named Willie Nelson, though. :D

No, just the one cat, my dog Bear and the bird, Petie.

The guy 2 houses from mine has a dog named Bear. It's a Chow.

Bear is a chow. Corner lot with a fence?

The guy I refered to can't use a computer. He's the local drunk, and lives in his Mom's house though he's like 45. :D

MMmmmm, Guinness.
:beer:

This guy drinks Colt 45.

No "local drunk" drinks Guiness where I'm from. :D

:D

When my housemates read this post, they complained: "Nelly is much more complex than that!". In the interest of more truthful media, I thought I'd bring you this report.