The Dog Screamer

By Diane Sesler

Enters Nuke the dog. An impressive muscular beast with a walnut size brain. A klutzy live wind-up energizer 9 year old dog who will run full blast into you. Bruises — I have many. My body looks like a war map. This is our 100 pound Doberman who chews on rocks as a hobby. Grown UPS men fall off our porch when I open the door.

Problem: He is the leader. I am untrained.

Situation: High pitch yelping that puts Daryl Hannah in Splash to shame. This happens when he’s excited which means 50% of the time. This is enough for neighbors to leave unfriendly notes in our mailbox. Foaming around his gummy bear mouth follows. His cartoon eyes would go around in circles if they could. I try a deep concentration method on keeping calm and gently tell him to hush and sit. This never works. Ever. His wiggly butt can’t stay still. I hear my mother in the back of my head “The Dog Whisperer wouldn’t do that…what you should do…”. I’m not paying attention. Nuke runs full steam into me. Extreme pain.

I LOSE it! Arggghhh #$@%^&*!!! Mille millions de mille sabords! Je vais te tue! I am The Dog Screamer! I am foaming at the mouth running (limping really) around the yard flapping my arms up and down. I’m screaming commands. I realize Nuke isn’t around. I’m my only audience. He’s gone looking for mega rocks. I’m in need of a water-bowl-sized cocktail.

I dream of the Dog Whisperer being next to me on my dock. I bark at him several times and then calmly shove him into the river. Nuke is in the background grinning.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

I’ve been telling stories since I was a kid. Characters always danced in my head. People take medication for that. I chose to write it down. I was born in Montreal. I’m a French pea soup girl. I didn’t speak English until I was sixteen. I still can’t pronounce my H’s well – hippopotamus still sounds like eepopotawmus. We moved a lot. The characters in my head became my friends. Art and humor has always been important to my soul. I practiced my stories on my sister. She was my first audience who smiled at my words. I think there’s something wrong with her though. I’m kidding. I worked at jobs that didn’t fit me. It took me a long time to know that art was the only thing that made me happy. I started out selling art in a church basement, which didn’t go well with hand-knitted socks with crosses. This eventually led to art shows, selling to art galleries, museum stores and so forth. My main medium for a very long time has been papier mache. My characters became papier mache sculptures. Friendly little monsters with sharp teeth came to life.  Of all my artwork, I must say my monsters were my favorite pieces I have created. Every character had a story. Then, the dormancy years happened. I just stopped making artwork. Don’t know why but it’s ok. Shortly after that, the flood took it all away.
Every piece of artwork or slides of my work was bye bye gone. We lived in a trailer for a year. That’s when I felt creative again. I started to write stories. It made me feel alive and well. The flood was a teacher. It made me rise from the mud like a lotus flower.