Dirk Hayhurst

“We’d love to bring him down to visit you, but we need him more comfortable with traveling in the car first,” I say, sincerely this time, patting Xylo on the head as I speak. I had to pull him into to range of the laptop’s camera so he could fit in the shot of the video chat.

“Will he lay down?” Asks the couple.

“Oh, no,” I say, “he might miss something if he does that. He paces around back of the car, slobbering on my windows, farting like someone ruptured a septic tank.”

There was no response to that comment.

“It’s, uh, it’s a bad traveling experience. Mostly for us. He just wigs out. But I’m fine with that. I mean, I can’t stop him from doing it, and eventually, when he realizes he’s not getting out and he’s not going to die, he’ll calm either from learning or exhaustion.”

“Oh the poor thing,” they say. “The poor, poor, puppy.” Xylo is not even looking at the camera, he’s just taking up space like he usually does. “Have you thought of getting a new car, with more space in it?”

“Oh, that’s not going to happen,” I say, instantly. This firm and immediate stance on the subject gets a face scrunching, head jerking reaction for them pair like I just said that I’d rather be addicted to crack than feed my child.  (more…)

I’m just going to come right out and say it: it’s extremely hard to concentrate on writing while your dog is slurping his crotch like a snow cone. Hey, I know dogs bath themselves with their tongue. I get that their customs are not my customs, and that their tongues go places usually reserved for porn or torture, but for goodness sakes, can’t they be a little bit more discrete about it? It’s a fervent, sloppy, ramen noodle-slurping event that lasts far longer than the needed time required to swab the area in question. (more…)

I walk the dog up Elm Street in hopes that we’ll pass this one house where this Boxer named Oscar lives. Oscar is a little fat, but that just means there is more of him to love since he’s a real people dog, friendly as a pedophile with kids, and just plain happy to be alive. I’m hoping that Xylo will take to him and maybe learn to come all the way up to folks instead of stopping at a distance of three feet and staring off into nowhere until petted.

Oscar is home. I can hear him barking inside the house. His owners, however, are not. As punishment for their absence, Oscar claws the paint of the window seals and tangles the blinds while Xylo pee’s on their shrubs.

(more…)

The name of the place was Bow Wow Beach, or something nearly as corny,  and for December 4^th it was pretty busy. All shape and size of dog owner with all shape and size of dog patrolled it, barking and correcting as they went.

While the name was a little sappy, the facility was a gem for the dog owner. It was a giant park, all fenced in, where you could let your dog off the leash without worry of him failing to ever come back. In shape, it was a big, ovular track, the kind you’d walk around at a high school football game except instead of a field in the center there was a pond about the same size. There were also smaller cavity cages inside the main perimeter where small dogs could run crazy without fear of getting trampled or eaten by a big one. (more…)

My wife rolls over and whacks me on the arm. She doesn’t have to hit me, I’m already awake. I have been for the last couple hours now; just lying there while the sleep depravation headache sets in on my temples.

“Go let him out,” she says.

“You go let him out,” I reply. A long pause ensues, both of us motionless. It’s quiet for a moment and sleep feels like it might be possible. Then, it starts again, Xylo barking from inside his crate downstairs.

“Son of a bitch…” I roll over and slam a pillow on my head.

(more…)

“He’s got a head like a damn anteater,” says my dad, pressing a thick hand down on Xylo’s long, narrow, snout— currently needling him in the crotch.

“Are they supposed to have heads like this?” Asks my concerned mother, who has not stopped inspecting Xylo since her arrival. “Jaxx”—her current dog, named after one of the Sons of Anarchy characters—“has a bigger head.”

“A real needly nose, like a… like a…”

“A needle,” I offer.

“like a needle,” confirmed my dad, nodding at me.

“Well, Jaxx is a Lab,” I say to my mom. Then to both of them, “Lab’s have bigger heads. Greyhounds have thinner, smaller heads. It’s normal for the breed.”

“It looks strange,” mom laughs to herself, “just, you know odd. Like a big man with a really small…”  she stopped.

“Small what?” I wait anxiously to see where this is going. (more…)

I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not keen on sappy doggy videos on the Youtube. I hate pulling up ridiculous picture collage set to an Evanescence song. Gee, look, a dog in a pool, here is one sleeping on a couch with his legs sticking up, now one looking pissed-off because it’s got a birthday party hat on it’s head— oh the memories! Every teenage girls first video project is about their pet, or Justin Bieber, or their pet named Justin Bieber. All the while, some weepy singer is crooning away in the background like the senior class just graduated. It’s some repugnant stuff, I tell ya, but times were getting tough around the Hayhurst house and I needed some help. (more…)

Xylo stands there, staring out the window like he’s a watchdog. I guess he is, just not in the way you’re thinking. He’s a sight hound, so he likes to stare at stuff—blowing leaves, the neighbor’s cat, rodents with bushy tails. Just stares at them, like Medusa though none of his glares ever make them turn to stone. Occasionally he whimpers over it, crying out to the heavens because God hath cursed all dogkind with the invention of glass, separating them from that which they most desire.

I call his name over and over again but either he doesn’t know it or doesn’t care. I throw treats at him, some hit the glass of the door’s full frame window, some hit him and bounce to the floor where they’ll sit, ignored, until I pick them up because having treats all over the floor reminds me of my parent’s house where the carpet looks like a gravel parking lot except the gravel is actually dog biscuit crumbs. (more…)

“If he doesn’t run right up and jump in on the first go, it usually means you’re going to have to lift him up and stuff him in,” said the lady at the rescue as she hoisted up my dog’s bare rear parts and crammed him in my vehicle.

Xylo is about 84 pounds from stem to stern, but he’s not so much heavy as he is awkward. I mean, I can lift 80lbs of dead weight, I mean, come on, look at me. 80lbs of squirming dog however is another thing entirely. Fortunately Xylo doesn’t squirm. He, like most greyhound rescues, just kind of stops and stares at god knows what when you’re not in motion. I stop, he stops, staring off into space with no discernible emotion on his face, like a retarded horse thats just happy to be occupying area of the universe that you are and would gladly suckle on the side of your face out of boredom.  (more…)

Before I coaxed him into the car, before I got the papers signed, and before the lady who gave him to me went on this hyper anal retentive rant about how the breed is second only to God in value to man kind and how I better reconstruct my house to accommodate his every need or want, there was the fine art of picking him out.

He wasn’t our first choice, actually. This other dog named Funyun was. He was one of those tiger stripped ones. Brindle, they call it. I just thought he looked really cool, like car with a hot paint job, which was enough for me. He was younger, and more energetic, but he also took a really long, steamy piss on the carpet of the waiting room while we were saying goodbye, which put considerable doubt in the mind of my wife and I. (more…)