Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(19)

“Why would that be necessary?” I asked.

“Because they could all be infected,” she informed me.

“Well, isn’t there a way to tell which ones are infected first—before removing them all?”

“We won’t really know until we put her under and take a look.”

“How will she eat with no teeth?”

“Well, we won’t take out any teeth that aren’t infected,” she assured me.

I was confused by this exchange. It felt like I was talking to a real live animal on the phone. “I don’t want any teeth that aren’t infected to be removed. Is that clear? Otherwise, I can just take her to my own dentist on Monday.”

Poor Tammy. I wasn’t about to let her move to Bel-Air with no teeth.

    Before the dog nurse hung up, I asked if they had been able to decipher Tammy’s age from her teeth’s state of affairs.

“She could be anywhere from four or five…to twelve. It’s hard to say.”

Is it written somewhere in the Journal of Medicine for Dogs to just say that all rescue dogs are between the ages of four and twelve? How can it be that a swab of saliva can determine a dog’s genetic heritage yet there isn’t a more precise way to determine the age of a dog at this juncture in modern society?



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Tammy would allow me to do almost anything to her body, and I needed her to know that she was going to get so tackled with love that her past would become a distant memory replaced by doggy massages, acupuncture, and baton twirling. She would let out a low rumble growl and I would go in closer, waiting for her to bite my face off, but she never once bit me. She bit my sister Shana once, but we all agreed that it was warranted. Tammy knew I was her captor and that it was in her best interest to just lean in and accept my devotion. Once I was done showering her with affection, she’d give me a final look to confirm that I was done molesting her, then scurry off the bed and down her doggy steps into the doggy bed that she’d usurped from Chunk. Once comfortably inside her new bed, she’d let out a groan that implied, Thank God that’s over.

I couldn’t keep my hands off her. I’d put her in a seatbelt in my lap on the way to work, when I knew she’d be much happier sitting in the backseat with her limbs free and one dead ear out the window. I can be an effusive lover, and after our initial trial period together, she just learned to deal with my advances.

    She was just big enough for it to be imprudent to pick her up, but that didn’t stop me either. She would immediately stiffen up, with her legs outstretched as if she were standing—making her look stuffed. She was a taxidermist’s dream.

Chunk was slim, but I’m not sure how to describe Tammy’s body. It seemed possible that some of her organs had shifted during one of her bar fights and then solidified. Her bald spots filled out within weeks, and her ratlike tail became full-bodied within her first month at home. She looked like an ad for nutrition.

She even started following me onstage during the interview segment of my Netflix show and would sometimes prop herself up on the little table between the guest and me. She didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about her; she just wanted to make sure we were in the same room, nothing more, nothing less. She would have been fine if I never pampered or pet her, but like most rescue dogs, if I walked out of the room, she’d follow me. If I walked into a bathroom, she would open the door with her nose and stare at me until I was done. Chunk did the same thing in a more needy way. He’d open the bathroom door, or if we were at work, he’d slide headfirst under the bathroom stall and then avoid eye contact. Tammy would do these things, but with confidence. Where Chunk was refined, Tammy was street. She’d sit down in front of the toilet, face-to-face, as if to say: Bitch, you need me more than I need you. I’m just keeping an eye on things. Tammy was more like a security guard.

    She wasn’t quite as spry as Chunk, so I didn’t bring her on trips with me because she couldn’t hop on and off planes and helicopters, but she was mentally fit, so there was backlash. That’s what led me to get a third dog; I thought another dog would help distract Tammy from the fact that Chunk and I were traveling around the world. I didn’t want her to feel excluded, since she was smart enough to hold a grudge.

My friend Kate—who loves animals more than people—texted me a picture of a dog that was at a rescue in Westwood, with a message that read, “This guy needs a home and he’s part Chow Chow.” This is what people do when they want me to rescue dogs; they tell me they are part Chow.

I went down to the rescue in Westwood and picked up our new dog. The girls working there told me he could be anywhere between four and twelve. I brought our new family member home and decided his name would be John. He was sweet and goofy and was definitely a big puppy—I figured he was probably two.

That night, in an effort to not overthink assimilating my new brood, I put all three dogs in my bedroom, and popped an edible. I was awakened by a low rumble that rose to a roar, and then to something that sounded like there was a werewolf nearby. When I flipped the lights on, Tammy’s midsize, corpulent body had somehow wrapped itself around John’s, like a contortionist. Thank God for instinct, because I’m scared to think what I would have done had I given it any thought. I screamed “No!” and then ripped Tammy off him. Her eyes were red and she looked like she was wearing red lipstick. I tossed her toward my closet. John was a bigger dog and stronger than I thought, and I couldn’t hold him back from barreling toward her, so I dove right into the middle of them, grabbed Tammy, pushed her headfirst into my closet, and shut the door. Then I scurried to my feet in my staple sleepwear—a bra and thong—and fended off John, who was growling with his nose to the closet. Once I got him outside my room and closed the door, I sat down on my bed and thought I was going into cardiac arrest. I was gasping for breath as I tried to figure out what to do next. I was scared of both dogs at that point—I didn’t know what they were capable of after seeing Tammy basically shape-shift into an anaconda.