fluffems (???? - 2009)

well, my (and my parents’) dog fluffems was killed today, february 28, 2009, around 12:15 pm, run over by a pickup truck on upper front street. my parents were trying to catch him, my dad chasing him and my mom in a car. my mom had also placed a trail of pieces of cheese leading to the front door and another one on the back porch to lead him to the back door. he had been loose for over an hour, in weather of about 25 degrees fahrenheit, and his fur was rather thin, yet i doubt he got cold at all since he was running too fast for anyone to keep up with. i was actually asleep at the time. maybe i could have saved him this time, but he would have eventually gotten run over. he was not afraid of anything, not lightning, fireworks, sewer grates, or cars; our previous dog mokka was afraid of all those things. whenever he ran away he liked to go towards front street and if he got there he would sometimes cross it multiple times, and it is a huge road full of cars. of course we tried to stop him every time he tried to go in that direction, but he was faster than any of us and didn’t want to be caught. to him, running away and having people chase him was a game. he was the nicest, friendliest, most loving, most harmless, most energetic, most spirited, and most vicious beast i have ever encountered. as far as i know, the only commands we ever managed to teach him were “sit” and “lie down”, and he never came when called. he understood it when someone called him, but he thought of it as a friendly invitation that was completely optional, not as a command that he had to follow. i loved fluffems more than anything, just as i loved my previous dog mokka more than anything. i do not really know what to make of this. i suppose i should just move on with my life or something. fluffems was adopted from the local dog pound after his previous owner abandoned him, leaving him in a crate by the side of the road in downtown binghamton. he always hated being inside crates or cages. i remember last night i had an argument with my mom about whether to lock him in a crate all night like she wanted, or let him roam around free downstairs like i wanted. i always wanted fluffems to be happy, since he was my best friend in the world. i think we got him from the dog pound in april 2007, so we had him less than 2 years. he was estimated as being about a year old when we got him, or maybe it was a year and a half. i don’t know. from the time we got him to when he was killed, he did not grow at all but his weight went up from 12 to 13 pounds. he was either a west highland terrier or some kind of mutt, but we have no idea since there are no pedigree documents. fluffems is what we named him after we got him; he must have had a different name before. he was neutered at the dog pound before we bought him, but there is a minor chance that he actually fathered some puppies before his original owner abandoned him. i doubt it though, since he was pretty much still a puppy himself. so his year of birth was probably 2006 if the estimates of the people at the dog pound are correct, but who knows? he certainly never got old at all. all my clothes are still covered in dog hair since he shed fur all the time, and the couch in the living room is completely covered. he tore so many dog toys to pieces using his fangs and powerful jaws. he even bit me a few times, but never very hard. he liked to cuddle, and liked sleeping next to a person instead of all alone. we took him with us on a trip to florida from late december to early january. he did not enjoy the plane rides or airports, but everyone who saw him loved him and said what a nice cute dog he was. he had a very good time in florida, and we even took him to the beach, despite the hefty fine we would have had to pay if we were caught with a dog in that no-dogs-allowed zone. he did not like cold weather, but enjoyed the summers a great deal, which makes sense given that he had white fur that reflects light instead of absorbing it, and that he had rather little fur. if you got him wet you could see right through the fur, and underneath his skin was half splotches of pink and half splotches of black. he would also smell bad if you got him wet. he did not enjoy baths, so he had very few of those, and he never needed a haircut. my mom trimmed all his claws a few days ago, which she did on a regular basis, and he was quite cooperative and uncomplaining. one thing he liked to do was look out the window and wait for someone to come by, and then start barking at them viciously. he never killed anything though. i remember he was actually afraid of little frogs and little lizards when i showed them to him (after i caught them with my bare hands). so then i would set the little wild animals free. those tiny creatures were the only things he was afraid of... besides baths and the veterinarian. he was very dominant with other dogs and always wanted to be boss, and he was certainly trying to be quite dominant here in our household. i wish i had been able to save him today, but it is too late for that. he was going to get run over by a vehicle on front street someday anyway, since he had tried to do that before a number of times. he thought it was all a big fun game and did not realize he was in any danger. luckily my dad is the only member of our family to see him get killed or to see him dead, and he is going to be cremated at the veterinarian. this is a very sad day, but also a joyous day because fluffems was always so full of joy, and just thinking about that wonderful dog fills me with joy, even if he is no longer with us. i can scarcely imagine him being anything other than just the happiest creature on the planet, since that was what he was like almost all the time. in fact, i bet in the last few minutes and even seconds of his life, he was happier than ever, since he had absolutely no idea he was in any danger, and was fully enjoying the “game” of playing in traffic. the pickup truck killed him pretty much instantly. so unlike my previous dog mokka, who was dying over the course of months and had a very miserable final day of her life full of screaming out in pain and agony for hours on end, fluffems died very happily, completely oblivious to any danger, enjoying things thoroughly. back in january he did have an ear infection for awhile, and i had him taken to the vet and treated until it was cured, but it did not really slow him down too much or prevent him from having fun. the last time i saw him was last night, after i finally agreed to lock him in his cage, and went down to find he was already in there, asleep. i closed the cage door on him and locked it, secure in the knowledge that i would be able to play with him and we would have fun together the next day. if i had had any doubts about that, i would have played with the dog all night. i still cannot believe he is gone. i gave him the name fluffems, a silly name, since he was a silly animal. i was always very nice to him, and perhaps he was my master, since he managed to get me to always argue for him to have more freedom and not be caged (his last owner abandoned him by the side of the road in a cage, and he was stuck in there for many hours, and he never liked cages one bit), and i generally gave the dog whatever he wanted. how could i resist doing that though? fluffems gave me way more positive attention than anyone else, even my previous dog mokka, who sometimes ignored me or tried to avoid me in her later years, and was not as affectionate or outgoing as him. i think today i should just look back at what a wonderful creature fluffems had and what a wonderful life he had. his life may have been short when it comes to time, but it was full of fun times and enjoyment. i remember when i heard the obamas needed a dog, i thought fluffems would be the perfect dog for them or for anyone else, and that if they really wanted him, than despite how much i love my little doggie, i would let them have fluffems, since they could probably provide a better life for him than me. then, awhile later, i realized i liked fluffems more than the obamas or anyone else, and fluffems liked me more than any other person or animal, and the obamas could probably find a dog more suited to their hypo-allergenic and other silly demands. but i doubt they could ever find a dog as great as fluffems. sure, his fatal flaw of not knowing of the existence of danger may have been a problem, but nobody is perfect, and dogs are generally not that smart. he was quite smart about many other things, just not knowing about danger. quite smart for a dog, not for a person. he, like mokka, was a master of escape. the only difference is, mokka eventually came back, mokka did not run too fast to be caught, mokka was much more obedient and knew more than 10 times as many commands, and mokka was afraid of many dangerous things. i am sure fluffems’ lack of knowledge in commands was chiefly the result of his independent spirit and refusal to obey any master other than himself, not of any lack in intelligence or hearing abilities. i suppose another thing mokka was better at than fluffems was catching things. if you threw something at mokka’s head, she would catch it in her mouth. if you threw something at fluffems’s head, it would hit him in the head, bounce off, land on the floor, and then get sniffed by him. and fluffems was much less thorough at licking up food spilled on the floor than mokka. mokka was more lethargic and more willing to concentrate on one thing for a period of time than the short-attention-span hyperactive maniac fluffems. fluffems was almost untrainable, but perhaps our family was just not that good at training him. i don’t think he wanted to be trained though, since he would never cooperate. my parents took a course with fluffems on how to train a dog, and i expected them to actually do what was taught in the course, but for some reason they wanted me to train him instead, even though i had no idea how to train a dog and they were the ones who took the course. so he did not get trained much by anyone. he even peed and pooped inside on a regular basis. he did it just last night, less than 24 hours before he died... and he was in perfect health. i don’t know if anyone could have trained a beast like fluffems... probably an expert could have, but it would cost too much to pay some expert to train our dog for us. i guess that is what the dog training course was for, since it was taught by one of those experts. anyway, i suppose now i will spend the time i would have spent playing with fluffems playing video games instead. i remember it was probably about a year ago or something when i ran over a bunny rabbit on front street, right about the same place where fluffems was run over. but it was raining and night-time when i ran over the bunny rabbit. fluffems was run over in broad daylight when the sun was out, and apparently the road was not icy or slippery at all today, and his white fur would have made him stand out against the black road. i guess he just moved too fast, and probably got in front of the pickup truck right before it ran over him. the truck driver stopped and apologized to my dad, and a police car came, and my dad said that none of it was the driver’s fault, and then the police car drove my dad down to the veterinarian, where my dad dropped fluffems off to be cremated. i don’t know when we are supposed to pick up our cremated dog from the veterinarian. we will never really know what breed fluffems was, or when he was born, or who his previous owner was. that is why i was always so intent on being as nice as possible to my dog and bonding with him as much as possible, so that he would be my dog and forget about any previous owner he may have had. i wonder what happened to his previous owner or why he was abandoned. back in late december and early january, fluffems made friends with a dog in florida named kutyush, hungarian for “doggie”. i hope his little fluffy friend in florida remembers him. he also met my niece erica once... i doubt erica will remember that. it was a million times sadder when my previous dog mokka died, mostly because mokka had suffered so much throughout the whole ordeal of dying, and had spent hours crying out in pain. i am glad that fluffems did not have to suffer at all, because nothing upset me more than seeing fluffems suffer. fluffems was my best friend for the less than 2 years that i had him, but i suppose we both have to move on... he is being cremated and i am still alive. what do you think it is like to be cremated if you are a dead dog? do you think dogs have some sort of spirit to them, and if so, what happens to the spirit after the dog dies? personally i just believe fluffems is dead and his spirit has been snuffed out for good, but i would prefer things if they did not work that way. i still cannot believe it. fluffems meant the world to me, and i would do anything to save him, but unfortunately it is too late. all i am left with is my human family and maybe a few human friends... i suppose we humans may be better adapted for survival than cute little doggies. it makes me wonder why i eat meat, when meat is made of animals that were killed for the express purpose of me eating them. i don’t know though... i like eating meat, and my doggie fluffems loved eating meat too, and so did my previous dog mokka. it is hard to imagine the animals i eat in meat having the personality and spirit of someone like fluffems. i know people for the ethical treatment of animals recently tried to rename fish to be called “sea kittens”, but that won’t work on me, since i don’t like cats, and kittens are cats. i am allergic to cats, and cats are evil creatures that act like they are your friends until they suddenly attack you without warning. a dog would never do something like that, because dogs are loyal, honorable creatures that actually care about people, unlike selfish cats who care about nobody but themselves. i don’t even think cats are really domesticated animals; they can live with humans and are not as afraid of humans as most animals, but they are still fairly wild, much more like wild animals than the extremely domesticated species known as dogs. it is hard to imagine dogs being descended from wolves and so closely related to wolves that they can interbreed with them and have half-dog, half-wolf puppies that are also capable of reproduction when they grow up. then again, fluffems did have a bit of a wild viciousness to him, but it was mostly just in a playful way. i have read that dogs are mentally like wolves except they stay in the mental stage of being a puppy for their entire lives, and dogs never become mentally mature. anyway, i hope fluffems comes back to life somehow so i can play with my doggie again. sure, it won’t happen, but hoping for something does not mean there is any likelihood of it happening, now does it? i am somewhat surprised that i have not gone into a panic attack over my dog dying. it is a bit puzzling to me why i am not more upset, and why i seem to be so calm compared to the last time my dog died. what would fluffems do if he saw me sad? he would come try to cheer me up, jumping up on me and licking my face, and then i would play with him and feel better. on thursday night i came home from work and was upset because i was in trouble, and fluffems managed to cheer me up. no other dog could be quite like fluffems, but maybe that is good, because i would hate to see another dog like him running away every chance it gets and trying to get run over by cars until it finally succeeds. everything else about fluffems was great though. i suppose with fluffems i have had so many near misses where he almost got run over by a car on front street and where i was very worked up about it, that when it finally happens as expected, it is kind of hard for me to come up with any reaction at all. when that which is closest to you is suddenly destroyed, what are you supposed to do? what i would like next is a girlfriend, because a girlfriend would be prettier than a dog and would know better than to try to get run over by cars on a busy road, plus girlfriends live much longer than dogs and they can actually speak english and stuff. i am not sure how loving a girlfriend is because i have never had one, but i have wanted one ever since a little before i hit puberty. so obviously years have gone by, but i am a shy person and guys are expected to make the first move; the few times i tried that i was rejected. a pet dog like fluffems or mokka never rejects you, and always gives you lots of attention and affection. i have never met any people like that, although i still hold out hope that maybe people like that actually exist. well ok, i suppose i might know a person like that, but she already has a boyfriend. anyway, people and dogs are very different things, and neither can substitute for the other... one thing they both have in common is that both can be friendly and provide affection, but in many other ways we humans are quite different from doggies. i don’t really think women are that different from men, to be honest, and that is actually the problem, since people are generally rather selfish, uncaring, and short-sighted. why do you think we have so many wars, or why there are so many crooks like bernie madoff? if dogs were in charge, we would probably still have wars, since dogs are territorial and are not always nice to everyone, but there certainly wouldn’t be dogs who behaved like bernie madoff, a guy who betrayed those closest to him and displayed a complete lack of any morality. certainly if cats were in charge, plenty of them would act like bernie madoff, but it would not matter, since cats are independent creatures that do not really have affection or loyalty or anything like that. if fluffems were a cat, there would be no need to memorialize him, since a cat would feel no need to memorialize a human owner who dies, and in fact the cat would eat their owner’s dead body. i am just trying to show fluffems the kind of attention and affection that fluffems showed me every day without fail. fluffems will always be remembered fondly by all of us humans who knew him. and i do not mean to demean cats in any way, but it is hard for me to feel any affection towards a species of animal that likes to viciously attack me without warning after pretending to be nice and causes me very bad allergies. the only thing i like about cats is their cute appearance. dogs have a cute appearance and many, many other good features as well. i am not really mad at the truck driver who ran over fluffems, though, because fluffems darted in front of so many oncoming vehicles after running away, it was bound to happen sooner or later. i just wish there had been some way to train fluffems. i know some dogs are well-behaved to the point where they do not run away and they can be taken on walks without a leash. i cannot imagine how you train a dog to be like that; perhaps some dogs are just born like that. and apparently dogs are not the only species of animal that can be trained; even humans can be trained, if you are willing to believe it! i do not think that training humans actually works though. nobody has ever successfully trained me to behave the way they want. i have too much of an independent spirit and a rebellious nature... kind of like fluffems. i bet if the obamas had adopted fluffems, he would still manage to run away from the white house quite a bit, and the secret service would not be able to catch him. i can imagine them calling in the fbi, swat teams, national guard, navy seals, and cia special ops to try to catch fluffems, and he would still get away. they would try to chase him down with a supersonic fighter jet, but he would run faster than the fighter jet, which would quickly run out of fuel and have to land, while fluffems would keep running. and he would run all the way back to my house, just to say hi, and he would not even be winded. fluffems could have solved our nation’s energy problems, since he had more than enough energy to power our entire electric grid... like the energizer bunny except more energetic. but a tiny 13-pound creature can easily be stopped by a giant truck that weighs 100 times as much, no matter how fast and energetic it is. i hope i never have to suffer the same fate as my friend fluffems... this whole “death” thing. it doesn’t look too promising about them finding a cure for death, but there are still some “futurists” who claim we will reach a point where the average life expectancy will increase by more than a year each year and keep doing that forever, due to advances in medical science fiction or some nonsense like that. it would be nice if whatever religion says that “all dogs go to heaven” turns out to be true... assuming i also end up in heaven with my dog. but i don’t think that any holy books make too much mention of dogs in that context. this probably means that those books are wrong, since the writers of them do not have faith in Dog, whose name has been mistakenly spelled backwards for centuries. on a more serious note, i miss fluffems and i am pretty sad to see him gone for good. there is nothing any of us can do now to bring him back. it is so surreal, since less than 24 hours ago i was playing with fluffems and we were having a good time... he was as happy as i had ever seen any living creature, running around the house and frolicking, completely full of joy. it was pretty much a polar opposite to the last 24 hours of the previous dog mokka’s life, full of pain and suffering. but i cannot think of a bigger shame than having the life of a wonderful creature like fluffems come to an end so prematurely. his life should have been 4 or 5 times as long, since he is estimated to have been about 3 years old when he died. 3 years is barely any time at all, and certainly not enough for a full lifetime. and we had him less than 2 years. our previous dog was one we had for over 13 years, so there is a bit of a difference there. even with the previous dog, i thought that her death had come far too early, since her 14th birthday was just a month away, and i wanted her to come to my college graduation later that year. if a human being dies at age 13 that is thought of as quite young, so it is a shame dogs have to make do with lifespans that are so much shorter. i think dogs deserve better, but who am i, some kind of genetic engineer? there is nothing i can do about it. i was hoping fluffems might last around the same amount of time as mokka, but life isn’t fair. i am just very very glad i did not have to see fluffems get killed or see his dead body. i have never been able to forget the horrors of seeing mokka die (and hearing her die as well). i remember how guilty i felt about every time i had ever been even slightly mean to mokka, and how i vowed to just be nice to any future dogs, something i did very well with fluffems. i just do not think dogs deserve anything bad in life. i suppose people do not either, but sometimes people are mean to you and then you have to be mean to them in response. well maybe you do not always have to respond like that, but it is rather hard to be nice all the time, given all the nasty people you have to put up with sometimes. dogs are simpler creatures, and they are simpler to deal with than people, which is why it is easier to be nice to them. i suppose even animals i don’t like, such as cats, deserve nice long lives full of happiness. but cats certainly would not show you the same appreciation as a dog like fluffems. fluffems was very good at communicating with me, and i understood him very well; i could usually tell what he wanted when he wanted something, whether it was food, attention, or going outside. i think i probably could have saved fluffems’s life if my parents woke me up while he was loose and told me about it. but it is too late for that, we will never know what could have been done to prevent it, and obviously there are steps that could have been done even earlier, like training him better, for instance. it is as much fluffems’s fault as anyone else’s that he got ran over, since he did have quite a mind of his own after all, and he did what he wanted. sure he did not know any better, but many animals do know better than to run out into the street when a car is coming. and i suppose that it could be argued that this is a form of evolution: survival of the fittest as described by charles darwin. i just wish that evolution did not have to single out fluffems as maladapted for survival in his environment, an environment where there are big streets full of cars, certainly not a natural environment. and then i think of all the animals i have eaten as food, and i wonder about it. i am no vegetarian, but i do feel bad for the animals. oh well. i am going to go have dinner and eat some more animals. it is what fluffems would have done.