"The World's Worst Dog Is Still Better Than A Cat."

"Why must it be like that? Why must I chase that cat? Must be the Dogg in me."

Weekend Assignment #123: Dog v. Cats -- There Can Be Only One

I used to have a cat named, at different times:

- Sasha

- Ditty Cat

- Fat Cat

She was pretty cool. She'd mostly sit around in sunbeams, and she'd only bother me for food or attention. "Rrrrrow!"

It's easy to see why cats were often afforded mystical status among earlier peoples. Even modern Americans don't like a black cat crossing their path. Would you be afraid of a witch who had a schnauzer?

Cats don't fuc* around much. They're all about Do Fo Self. Even when they want attention, they don't hang around much... they've got Other Stuff to do.

Cats are also of a higher order than dogs. A strong man with an axe can fend off even a pack of wolves. A tiger can tear apart an army platoon if it catches them with their weapons down.

Still... dogs are way better. It's not even close.

Sloppy is laying at my feet as I write this. If I get up, she may follow me... and even if she doesn't, she'll be keenly aware of where I'm headed. If I actually leave the house, she'll watch me walk away from her Sloppy window.

Dogs are best friends. Cats are associates. Dogs like to play. Cats give you that look like "leave me alone," and they may scratch you. Who needs that? I mean, that's what the rest of the world is for.

Every night, I take Sloppy and we walk on the local bog. If something happened, I trust that Sloppy would at least try to intervene. She probably wouldn't do any good, but her intentions would be honorable.

I actually got Sloppy shortly after 9-11, given to me from a friend who thought I needed cheering up. Sloppy was part of a brood that someone at a gas station in Maine was trying to give away, and she was about 3 days from the pound when she suddenly became a Monponsett resident.

In her first year with me, she:

- ate the bathroom floor

- ate the bedroom wall

- ate the carpet

- scratched into every closed door in the house, bringing about an architectural(?) style that sculptors know as "reverse bas relief."

- jumped up on a cranky cop at the DHS lacrosse game, scratching him

- got out of the house and boarded a school bus with the neighborhood third graders

- tore apart a pile of newspapers in my class when I brought her to school with me

- we're just scratching the surface, trust me.

 Sloppy got her name from my students. I thought it would be a good idea to bring her to school on a slow day where I had nothing planned, and let the kids pick a name for her out of their history textbooks.

They chose:

- Hitler

- Atilla

- The Nina (after Columbus' boat). "The" was important... "trust me... it'll look cooler of it's called 'the Nina'... no one else will have a dog named like that."

- Hannibal

- Catherine the Great

- General Sherman

- Khan

- Whitey, after notorious Boston underworld figure James "Whitey" Bulger. This came from Andre- who is in jail now.

"Andre... I live in the suburbs.... if I yell 'Whitey' out my door, 50 people will show up."

While Andre and I were discussing this, Sloppy deuced right on my classroom floor. Bashaw- who was genrally a silent presence in my classroom- noted, "Damn... that's a sloppy mother****ing dog."

The whole class became animated. "Yeah... you ought to name that s*** 'Sloppy Dog'.... (the dog comes over to the kid who says it)... look, she likes it!"

Seemed like solid enough logic for me. Sloppy it was.

My friend Tornado was against naming the dog "Sloppy." She favored "Bennie," even though Sloppy is a female. "You can't name it 'Sloppy,' because it will hear you calling it "Sloppy,' and it will create a self-fufilling prophecy."

"It's a f****ng dog, Tornado... it doesn't have a concept of sloppy."

She was right, though... that dog knocked about $30,000 off the value of the Monponsett house.

Not long after we decided on a name, my friend Tonya (who worked in the adjoining office, which was the Boston base of the Norwegian Seafood Export Council) asked if she could "borrow" Sloppy.

 "My sister will be in town from Norway for a week, her English is terrible, and it'd be nice for her to have a dog to walk in the park."

"I don't know, Tonya... it's a real Sloppy dog."

"If it becomes a problem for her, I can just keep her in the office with me the rest of the day (my boss at the school had banned Sloppy from attending anymore, after Sloppy deuced his office while he was watching her as I took the kids to basketball practice... I was proud of Sloppy, because my boss at that school was a real prick)."

"OK."

I gave Tonya the dog at 7:15 AM. There was probably a period of 5 minutes where Tonya brought Sloppy back to her apartment. At 8:35, I took my first class out for a smoke.

"Ain't that Sloppy Dog?" Myles was pointing at the offices of the Norwegian Seafood Export Council.

I turned, and there was Sloppy.... ripping down the venetian blinds of the poor Norwegians. She then got into their Viking replica boat, and scratched the s*** out of it.

 It turned out that Sloppy drove Tonya's sister crazy in about 15 minutes, and was sent into exile to the seafood export council. I doubt that they sold any salmon THAT day.

She's a nightmare, but she's my nightmare. She also knows i'm thinking of her, because she just looked up. I expect her to wreck something today, and it most likely will be something valuable.

I wouldn't trade her for anything, though.