Never trust a Poodle...

I had never really thought of Poodles as much of a dog growing up.  I was raised with German shepherds as an ideal example of a real dog.  They ate plants out of the garden, roots and all, that probably should have killed them.  They terrified the absolute crap out of the paper boys in our area and no cat ever set foot in our yard... at least none that we saw.  We were taught to think that these were real dogs and any breed that couldn't match their awesomeness in these areas was obviously a lessor breed.  So when I moved out from living with my Mum and Step-Dad to live with my Dad and Step-Mum I had a large adjustment to make.  Not only did they own a cat, but they also owned a poodle.

When I was a kid our German Shepherds were cheeky buggers.  Conan, the younger; bigger; and; sookier one, would always get into trouble from mum.  She always had to be the bad guy.  She didn't like it, but someone had to keep a giant German shepherd pup in line.  Conan was smart. One day mum came home from work to find shredded piles of clothes strewn all over the yard. Her clothes. Only hers.  He was a smart bastard.  To me, I thought this was a sign of intelligence from the breed, rather than the species in general.  How wrong I was.

Cody, the poodle, turned out to be pretty cute and kind of crazy.  I grew to love him and we became friends, I guess you could say.  The only problem was he was kind of obsessive and very neurotic.  In the back of my mind I guess I rationalized it by thinking poodles weren't that clever, they were less intelligent than awesome breeds like German shepherds. It was more a case of being ignorant on my part than of him failing to show signs of intelligence.

This all came to a head one fateful day.  He was obsessed with a lizard hiding underneath one of the logs in the backyard.  And by obsessed I mean there for probably more than a couple of hours, whingeing, scratching and doing little cute puppy circles.  Not only was I concerned for the lizard's safety, but I was getting fed up with hearing the constant scratching and whining noises from the backyard.  I'd had enough.

I marched down to the backyard and yelled out his name. Nothing. 'CODY!!!!!' I screamed at him, 'FOR GOD'S SAKE, LEAVE THE FREAKING LIZARD ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!'. Still nothing.  It was like his whole being existed just to paw and scratch and whine at that damn lizard.  Something inside me snapped.  Like, went completely loco.  I did a kind of angry dance and then I smacked him.  Right on the bum.  It wasn't hard, more like a firm tap, but he had been so absorbed in that damn lizard that he forgot the world existed.  To put it short, he almost pooped himself.

He twisted around and looked at me like I had given him a right flogging.  At this stage I was still yelling, though who knows what I was even saying.  He scuttled off and I just stood there, hulking out for a couple of minutes.  He didn't bug the lizard again, he must have been traumatised, so I got on with my day.

The next day at school I was thinking about how I had treated him.  I began to feel guilty.  I thought to myself, 'He is just a poor stupid poodle, he doesn't understand.  What the hell is wrong with me?' I felt terrible.  I got home that afternoon and found Cody curled up on the couch.  When he heard me he poked his little head up.  I could see fear in his eyes.  I was a monster.  I sat down next to him and began my apology.  I explained to him that I hadn't meant to get so mad and that I shouldn't have smacked him, no matter how soft it was.  I promised him that it would never happen again and that I really wanted to be friends again.  And yes, I really did say all this out loud.

At the end of it Cody seemed a little more relaxed but I knew there was a long way to go.  As I got up from the couch and began to walk to my room I turned to him and smiled, I actually told him I loved him.  He looked nervously at me, as if he expected me to hulk out.  Then I walked through my bedroom door.

Piss EVERYWHERE.  On my bed.  On my rug. On my school books.  On my sketch books.  That little bastard. I walked out of my bedroom and looked at straight into his cold dead eyes.  It was war...

Cody:1, Hambo: Nil.


NEVER underestimate a poodle.