Ich Liebe Dich, Doggie

I was a weird kid growing up.

Weird in the things I liked and weird in the very specific things I wanted to accomplish as an adult. Like dogs, for example.

Ok, sure. Most kids want dogs.
And true, most kids have fantastic ideas of their far-off impending adulthood.
Stick with me here—

First (ignoring for a moment the fact that I am a city person), I was going to move to Long Island.
Still here?
Then I would be able to get two Doberman pinscher dogs and they would have a big yard to run around in.
Not weird yet, right?

Having the large country house was a double necessity.
Dobermans are larger dogs.
Large dogs make large poop.
With a great big yard I imagined I could teach them to just bury the poop on the property (somewhere that the lawn wasn’t as aggressively manicured) so that way I could have the dogs and not the unsightly (and squishy) mess.

"Pssst. I'm about to drop a load of biscuits behind the hydrangeas."

In this imaginary giant house out on Long Island, (next to Gatsby?)
I’d have one girl dog and one boy dog. And name them Van and Tai respectively.


(sidenote: I know currently the more popular ‘purse dog’ is on trend and that makes sense to me, too. If you really love your dog you want to take it everywhere with you to annoy people. I had that base covered then also. Eventually I would add a third dog to this growing menagerie-- a mini pinscher. No name as of yet.)


Anyway, the dogs are obviously a homage to Vanity and Taimak – the stars of the 80’s cult classic The Last Dragon.

They look adorable in rhinstone collars.

So my relatively small self wanted to grow up and have these two, stereotypically big snarly mean ass dogs. And train them to attack on command. In German.
Seriously.

As a kid I really wanted to learn to speak German.
Hopefully fluently but specifically and originally just to talk to my dogs.
Still with me?

I wasn't a Bavarian fanatic (altho' I still have a prediliction towards German engineerd cars)

but on the subject of my future canines in my mind it only made sense.

If you are training someone it would just seem easier to relate to them in their language of origin. It’s the same reason all your instruction manuals are written in a thousand languages regardless of the country you bought them in.

Obviously the Dobermann was first developed in Germany, and out of respect for the rich history of the breed (not so much the scaier history of the people) I wanted to communicate with my dogs in the language that they would inherently understand.

And teach them to attack people on command.

Not so cute.

I watched musicals alot as a kid, too. I think this German/dogs thing might have originated with the scary ass dogs in The Sound of Music.

I also wanted to be a pirate, a ballernia, a lounge singer or a Thundercat.

The dog business would have worked out in all cases. Except fot the Thundercats. Alpha-Dogs and Alpha-Cartoon-Cats probably wouldn't get along.