Kyoshi (Puppy)

If you had asked me five years ago, or even 12 months ago if I'd ever get a pet (that didn't pee or poo inside a closed and self-contained environment that was easy to clean out, and didn't shed or slobber fucking everywhere) I'd have laughed in your face, punched you in the gut, taken a baseball bat to your windshield, and called your mother a whore before stating "no, I would never get a dog or a cat or the like. They are smelly and do nothing but take up your precious free time. I live for my free time."

But then Cupcake told me all about her old pets and how much she missed them, and I started looking into which animals I actually thought would be worth raising and turning into little me-worshippers. Cats were out. I fucking LOATHE cats. Cats hate humans (even more than I do), they never want to be pet or held, and only tolerate people because we trap them in our houses, declaw them so they can't run away into the woods and freedom, and feed them Fancy Feast. I have only met one cat in my life that I didn't want to punch in its detestable pussy puss.

Yes, yes, yes, KITTENS are cute. In fact about 90% of all mammal babies are adorable for the obvious reason that they need older creatures to get attached to them in order to raise them to the eventual point wherein they can move out and get a job earning bacon to eat on their own. Kittens and puppies are super fucking adorable. Nobody (not even Stalin or Chairman Mao) would argue that. I have stated to my friends on multiple occasions over the years (and with absolute sincerity) that if they (smart science people) could ever create a puppy or kitten in a lab that STAYS a puppy or a kitten forever, I'd be the 20,000th person in line telling them to shut up and take my money.

But Cupcake told me early on that although puppies are indeed precious and make you go "Awwwww!" simply when they look at you, they poop and pee everywhere because you can't fully house train them before they're like 4 months old, they chew on everything that they can get their jaws on, they have to be constantly monitored, and they whine a whooooole lot whenever you're not constantly hovering over them because they think you simply don't exist anymore if you're out of their line of sight. I got her point, but still figured that if I was ever going to get a dog (I had of course narrowed my potential pet choice to a canine by this point, because as I just stated cats are the devil), I would definitely want to raise it from puppyhood so that I could get those few precious puppy months of soft fur, big eyes, and puppy breath in before it turned into Cujo (in my mind what all dogs turn into as adults). So then the search began for what BREED of dog I'd get... If I were to ever get one.

I really began reading up on dogs. Small dog benefits (they fit in pursed and for some reason chicks think they're the bees' knees), large dog benefits (they're manly and you don't have to be embarrassed walking them... Unless it's a giant, fruity-looking poodle), and all the down sides of every breed I thought looked cool. It was at this point that I narrowed it down to two brand name pooches — two breeds that were heart-meltingly cute as puppies, but still cool or captivating as fully-grown doggies: the Welsh Corgi (thanks mostly to my love of Ein, not Queen Elizabeth II), and the English Bulldog (thanks to UGA's wrinkly awesome mascot).

The problem with the Corgi is that they need a shit-ton of exercise, and although I'd be willing to go on a walk with one every day after work, I just don't fucking run (ever), and they LOVE to (they were originally sheep and cattle herding dogs). The problem with the English Bulldog is pretty much everything (physically). Over the past 150 or so years, the English Bulldog has become so bred down that even though they are soooo fucking cute, they have respiratory issues thanks to breeders liking their shouts so teeny-tiny small, they have hip dysplasia problems thanks to their stubby little legs, and well hell, their bodies are like what happens when a family from Alabama loses their cable and starts fucking their sisters, mothers, and children for about a dozen generations because, well, no Big Bang Theory or Two and a Half Men to keep their itty-bitty inbred brains' attention for longer than 5 seconds.

That's when I discovered that there's actually a relatively new beast out there called the "Olde English Bulldogge" (intentional spelling), and it's the result of breeders liking the basic bulldog look, but not the health issues, and so they bred them out a bit so that they're stronger, taller, bigger, and less hillbilly inbreddy than most of the regular ol' English Bulldogs in the world now... And they cost about half as much as full-blooded English Bullies. Seriously, go google "english bulldog puppies for sale" and check out those fucking prices! Damn!!

So I found a few reputable breeders of the Olde English Bulldogges relatively close to my house, talked to each one for a while and got to know them, found out everything that it would take to raise one of their puppies properly, and then thought about it for a good long while. Seriously, at least 2 litters from each family-run breeder came and went (in fact they all sold within two weeks of being posted online) before I found the one I wanted: a male puppy who looked like Spanky's dog in The Little Rascals! I was going to name him "Winston" after the man I idolize the most in this universe, and because he looked just like Churchill. But when I showed Cupcake the webpage with the puppies, she pointed out another dog that she liked: a cute fawn-colored female who looked like her face was painted with kabuki makeup (hence being named after the greatest Earth Kingdom avatar ever!). I admitted that she looks pretty dang adorable too, and once Cupcake told me that male dogs like to mark their territory all over the insides of houses and females don't, she talked me into the painted-face female. I then bought her.

I then started preparing my house for the new family member, and then I racked up a several hundred dollar bill at Petsmart for a travel kennel, food, toys, and puppy cleaning products (my puppy was going to be the cleanest fucking animal in these United States if I had anything to say about it). Then, when she was 4 weeks old I made my first trip up to meet her and play with her on the farm she was born on. My first introduction to the girl made my insides quiver and my mouth just say "Awwwww!" I knew that soon she'd be a bitey, pooping and peeing machine, but at that moment, for those 30 some odd minutes, I fell in love with a god. (I meant to type "dog" there, but thought that that typo was actually pretty damn ironic because dogs are the exact opposite of judgmental and easily-pissed-off deities. So I just left it in.)

Eventually the time came to pick her up for good, and Cupcake and I drove back up to the farm and came home with a new member of the Rossman family. Kyoshi was so goddamn adorable from the very beginning (she cuddled with Cupcake the whole drive home, and she snuggled with us while we watched TV, and snorted and yipped as we played with her and her new chew toys), and we found out she was really fucking smart. So smart that it kind of scared me. Like, "I think she knows what I'm doing at my computer at night" scary.... While she just staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaares. That's a major turn-off, I'll tell you what.

See, we tried puppy pad-training her (where you leave an absorbent pee-pad near the back door, and when you see the dog looking like she wants to piddle or poop on your living room floor you pick her up and put her on the pad until she learns to go there herself. Then you just start to open the door when she heads for the pad and show her where in the yard she needs to go), but found out that she already only wanted to go to the loo outside (after she held everything in for almost a full day when we first brought her home and kept trying to put her on the pad when we thought she was about to let loose... It was only after pure desperation on my part that I took her outside only to find that that was exactly what she was waiting for... I honestly don't know how an animal that small could produce a such a monstrously massive and putrid pile of anything), and learned "Sit" and "Stay" at only 7 weeks old. Trust me, that's apparently impressive as all shit.

So the puppy's precious, smart, and pretty much came house-trained (well, aside from one or two small accidents every once in a while because, well, 9 week-old puppy as of this writing)... Anything else? Well, she is usually very calm, but every so often she'll get barky and waaaaay too bitey when one plays with her and her chew toys. And then, no matter how much I promised myself I'd never use her crate as a "time out for naughty puppies" there comes a point where I just want her out of the way for a while after she gets all nippy on my hands and feet... And those puppy whines, although initially cute for the first few days I had her, they grew old very, very fast. Ignoring them for about a minute or two though seems to shut her up now.

Kyoshi loves children, isn't afraid of much larger dogs (our neighbor's very energetic black lab loves to run around or over her when they play out in the back yards), and her kisses/licks still smell a bit like puppy breath... but that last bit is fading fast. As long as she mellows out to be your typical bulldogge, I'll be pleased with the final result.

One last thing — instead of making her sound cute or Asian (to go with her name) when I make her talk, all I ever seem to do is slip into a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog routine with her. Very strange. And she thinks your mom's a whore.... I keeeeed, I keeeeeeeeed... Except about the whore part.

In the end I find that I have to give my puppy Kyoshi 4 out of 5 bones of swellness. She is highly entertaining and extraordinarily adorable, she's fun to play with, and she doesn't seem to mind me and Cupcake all that much, but she is pretty much an eating, peeing, and pooping machine (every so often still in the house), and she sometimes gets too worked up and starts barking and nipping to the point where I sometimes have to count to ten in order to not bite her back to teach her a lesson. Also, she has to be constantly monitored at the moment, but I find myself trusting her not to piddle on my kitchen tiles more and more each day. Someday we'll have a real Olde English Bulldogge, not just a puppy. I'm actually really looking forward to that time.

As an added bonus, when I took her to her initial vet check-up, the main vet and an assistant knew where her name came from, and we proceeded to have a 15 minute conversation on cartoons and Godzilla in the waiting room.

Puuuuuuppyyyyyy! YyyyyyaaaaAAAAAAaaaay! I love dogs! Dogs are the best. Cats are okay, but I really love dogs. They love you unconditionally, and they're loyal, and they're just ssssssoooooooooooo cute! I've almost always had a dog or two growing up, and at one point even had a whole litter of French Mastiffs (think "Hooch" from Turner & Hooch). So when the Rossman said that he was going to get a bulldog puppy I just hit cloud nine! Uga, the UGA mascot, is the most adorable puppy dog in the world! And once I first laid eyes on Kyoshi I just knew she was the one!

She's smart. I know, I know... All parents and dog owners think this of their kids, but Kyoshi is smart. She learned how to "sit" at 7 weeks old, she loves to play rough, and can handle herself well with other dogs that are almost 7-times her size (we only let her socialize with neighbor dogs who we know have had all their shots, we're not crazy), and she's already completely adjusted to us in just three weeks. Next up is leash training, which I will admit is something that will be hard since the nylon leash is apparently delicious to puppies, no matter how much bitter spray you cover it with.

I love Kyoshi! She's one of the greatest puppies ever! Except that one time she rolled around in her own crap in her sleeping kennel... Well, anyways, two thumbs up for Kyoshi! There it is.

Okay, the Rossman just won't shut the fuck up about his new dog. I gotta tell you, it's truly pissing me off.

I don't even know what this is all about. I mean really, just last year he was telling me that the only good dog was on a Korean menu. This is about his chick, isn't it.... I knew it. It's always about a woman. Why else would he get that tattoo of a dove carrying an olive branch in its beak on his butt cheek, and then why would he get that brand of Duke's Blue Devil a year later right over the top of that gay tattoo? Women.

His dog will probably give him rabies. And then eat his corpse when he dies... before anybody even notices he's gone.

Meh, dogs are better than cats, so I'll give him points for that, but I take away points for him being such a wimp about his own convictions. I only give this puppy 5 out of 10 punches to the face.