Jess lanai

My first dog was an Irish setter puppy that my dad bought impulsively on his road trip home.

The eight week old puppy spent the entire trip getting car sick all over my dad but he was too excited to give me the puppy to care.

He placed it on the steps of our brand new apartment in our brand new town and waited for me to find it.

I had as many years to my life as the puppy had weeks and at first I was very excited to see a puppy.

But the little thing just sat there whimpering at the bottom of the stairs and I decided I didn’t like the puppy and acted more excited than I felt just to appease my dad’s excitement at giving me the puppy.

I put real effort into liking it because my dad had bought it for me. So I took it for a walk and it was so small that it couldn’t see over the snow. So through my footprints to follow me just like the dog from my favorite Disney movie, the fox and the hound.

So I decided I liked him and I named him Copper after the dog in the movie.

One of my best features is my ability to recognize my own mistakes and apologize and learn from those mistakes.

My next best feature is that I put fun first. Which means I forgive very easily and if I’m having fun I will move on and past grievances will be forgotten as quickly as flipping a dime.

These may seem like good qualities but they are just the other edge of a sword.

A strong self awareness and adaptability is the result of being impulsive and manic.

God wouldn’t be so cruel as to mix insanity with rigidity. Such a being would be useless in all contexts.

Insane people do insane things and we develop the capacity to apologize due to the insane mistakes we make. To feel deep levels of shame and remorse because we understand consequences and how they work as we have experienced them first hand.

We are not ignorant. We know that the fire will burn but we keep putting our hands in it.

My mom and dad already had two dogs before we got Copper.

A cocker spaniel named Sissy (my mom named her Sissy because she was such a sissy)

And a little white terrier type dog named Sigmund (after Sigmund Freud because the dog was really smart and a total dickhead(my dad’s words))

But even with three dogs my mom volunteered us to walk dogs for the local dog shelter.

She was a marathon runner like her dad (grandpa Larry) and none of the dogs we had could even begin to keep up with the many miles she ran a day.

But the pent up shelter dogs were a different story.

There was one particular dog at the shelter that she took running all the time. He was a husky border collie mix named Larry. (Not after my grandfather. That was just a coincidence that grandpa Larry was pretty miffed by. Dog Larry had been named after the three stooges because he was one of three weird looking brothers)

Poor Larry (dog Larry) had gotten adopted and returned to the animal shelter many times. Because he was a super high energy dog.

He went horse back riding with me. Hiking and running with my mom.

He chased cars and cows and sheep.

He could do all that everyday and run around our five acres of property and still never run out of energy.

Larry once chased down a deer. He chased it so long it couldn’t run anymore. And when he caught it he just tried to get to run again and when it wouldn’t and it just laid down prepared to die, he nuzzled its nose and laid down with it.

Time to count dogs. Sigmund the terrier, Sissy the cocker-spaniel, Copper the Irish setter and Larry the Husky border collie.

Then came a day where my family took a long hike up into the hot springs and out of nowhere a young female lab showed up hung out the whole time and followed us back down the trail. And she brought a friend with her.

A little puppy whose breed was hard to determine but if I had to guess I’d have said he was a black lab and Jack Russel mix.

My dad had a soft heart so he didn’t want to just leave the two dogs out in the wilderness. And we went home with Jet Li (the Jack Russel mix) and Lady the lab.

Sigmund, Sissy, Copper, Larry, Lady and Jet li.

Six dogs.

At that point we had a pack of dogs.

My brother and I loved to go rollerblading. We’d rollerblade to the local grocery store with four dogs following us. We never leashed them, they just ran beside us. Then the dogs would wait outside while we bought snacks in the store.

All but Larry.

Because Larry was big as a bear and could trigger the automatic doors to open. Then he’d run around the store and over the store speaker we’d hear ‘black and white dog in the store’

Then we’d go fetch Larry from one of the grocery store employees.

That happened every time we rollerbladed to the store. And every time over the speaker we’d hear ‘Black and white dog is in the store again.’

Eventually over a week or two the store got to, ‘Larry is in the store again’ calling out over the speaker.

And every single grocery store employee would ask us how Larry was doing any time we were there without him.

One day on our way home from the store we got chased by a little black curly tailed puppy that at my guess was a mixture of chowchow and perhaps some kind of collie.

We spent a few weeks putting up found dog signs and asking neighbors if they’d lost a puppy but no one ever claimed him.

He was another high energy dog but he wasn’t cool and calm like Larry, he was a little shithead.

He barked and growled.

He loved fireworks. We had to make sure he couldn’t get outside because he really wanted to attack the fireworks. The first time he saw one he pounced on it and tried to run off with it in his mouth. Luckily we caught him before he exploded.

He got kicked in the face so many times by horses that he lost one of his eyes and he still kept trying to chase horses.

My brother named him Gaiden after the Ninja Gaiden video game.

Seven dogs.

That pretty quickly after we reached seven became five.

Sissy passed away first. My mom got her before I born and I was about 14 or 15 when she died.

Sigmund didn’t last long without Sissy. He kept wandering around in little circles looking for something to follow. He died within a few months later at around 16 or 17 years old.

Five dogs.

Then five dogs became four dogs. We were way out in the sticks on a large piece of land that boarded people raising cattle.

Larry loved cattle. And cattle loved Larry. Cows are surprisingly playful. They like to chase and to be chased. They used to chase me along the fence when I went running and Larry used to chase them.

We heard a gunshot one night and we never saw Larry again.

Can’t prove it but we think the neighbors shot him. Larry would have been easily mistaken for a wolf chasing their cattle in the dark.

When Larry died things went to chaos. We never realized that Larry was the one keeping everything together.

Having so many dogs was easy because they never got into dog fights. They stayed in line on walks. The only problem in the group was Gaiden but if he acted out too much Larry would just pin him and Gaiden would chill out for the next few hours.

But when Larry passed away hell was released.

Gaiden became a nightmare without Larry to put him back in line.

Right after the loss of Larry, Lady all the sudden became very dog aggressive where she had never been before. We could no longer take her to dog parks.

Jet Li turned into a yippie, diggy little twit head. And Copper became an anxious dog where he’d before been calm and quiet.

Losing Larry lost the order and having so many dogs became a nightmare.

My mom has consistently blamed me for the amount of dogs we had. Even though of my childhood I got not one single dog.

My dad got Copper

My mom got Larry.

My dad decided to take Jet li and Lady. And Gaiden followed us home and they resolved to just keep instead of taking him to the shelter.

Not a single one of those dogs was my fault…

Not those dogs.

When I was about sixteen I got a job at Dunkin donuts. The job was meant to help me pay for all my extra curricular activities.

My martial arts, my swimming and my horseback riding.

But instead of saving my paycheck I cashed it out, got in my car and drove 45 mins out to go buy a basset hound puppy I’d found online.

Then I left the puppy in my mom’s room with a note that said something like, ‘I know you said no more dogs but I wanted her!!’

Then I ran away and hid the trees on our property and waited to hear my mom scream ‘Jessica!’ Then I waited another hour or so.

To give her enough time to calm down and realize how irresistibly cute basset hound puppies are.

Before I dared enter the house I peaked in and saw her saw her sitting with the adorable basset hound puppy

When I came inside she told me she was going to kill me, but she said it with it a smile on her face as she pet the puppy. So I knew I’d won.

I named her Lucy after Lucille Ball.

As a teenager I was very obsessive. (An ingredient for insanity). Luckily most of my obsessive energy got tied up in sports.

I was especially obsessed with martial arts. My Dunkin’ Donuts job was meant to help pay for going to my Martial arts tournaments. But I’d spent my paycheck on getting the basset hound puppy.

I did Tae Kwon do and competed in sparring and forms known as poomsae.

My favorite poomsae was call the Koryo poomsae. You can look it up on YouTube. I think it’s one of the most beautiful poomsae.

And Koryo is exactly what I ended up naming the three month old pitbull puppy I found in the streets at my Tae Kwon Do tournament.

I called him Kory for short.

Of all the dogs I’d already had my entire life, this was the dog I fell the hardest for.

My mom was furious (understandably) and my mom was (and is) scary. Her no’s are petrifying. She needn’t even say the word no. She need only look at me with irritation (even to this day) and I want to run for the hills.

I had been able to win her over the cuteness of the basset puppy. But she’d had enough. She was putting her foot down.

Normally my mom’s foot going down was a frightening thing. But for that pitbull puppy I was fully willing to face her.

He’d walked right up to me in the parking lot and crawled right into my lap and pretty much never left my lap since then. I was more obsessed with keeping him than anything I’d ever been obsessed with.

And I yelled back at my mom about keeping the dog.

It was a long hard fight, but eventually I won.

Because of my dad. Not because I won against my mom. I could never win against my mom. But my dad could and my dad spoiled me and he put his foot down on letting me keep Kory.

So there we were. Six dogs.

A couple years later I decided I wanted to move to LA. And as an insane person I didn’t leave much space between the idea and the action and rather impulsively I packed my pit bull and my basset hound into my suburban and drove to LA.

My dad helped me with rent until I found a job. And I lived an insanely chaotic life of trying to work all the time while having two dogs and living in a trashy apartment.

In my trashy little neighborhood where I walked my pit and basset I did find yet another dog.

A little white chihuahua that I took back to my apartment, gave a bath and she lived with me for about a month. Until my mom and dad came to visit and my mom fell totally in love with the chihuahua and named her Stevie after Stevie Nicks and I was left again with just my two dogs.

And now the dog story is finally starting to come to an end. I feel like I’ve been writing it for a week. When really it’s just been a couple days.

But going over the past makes it feel long. And makes me worry that I’m still too impulsive and still a little insane.

The days of Sheba the Saint Bernard. Those were funny days. Right smack in the middle of porn when I got Sheba.

I named her Sheba after the stories my dad used to tell me about his childhood Saint Bernard named Sheba.

My dad’s Sheba was whimsical. My Sheba was just a big giant bitch. She hated every human and every dog that wasn’t in her immediate family. Barked and growled at everyone and slobbered on everything. And yet I still took her everywhere.

Even when I quit porn and got an office job. I brought Sheba. Kory and Lucy were more content to stay home. But Sheba was attached to my hip.

Kory died first.

Not long after my dad died.

He got bladder cancer and only made it to nine years old.

Then it was Sheba. A couple years after I finished Mektoub and moved out of LA she died of bone cancer. She was only 6 years old.

Lucy made it the longest. Quite a few years after porn and even a few years after Mektoub when I was in a void between worlds.

I was still incredibly immature and impulsive and manic and all those things that make a person insane and ineffective in their own lives.

Lucy died when I was still a wreck and I promised myself I wouldn’t get anymore dogs for a very long time.

I’d say she died about five years ago.

I stayed very disciplined on not getting a dog.

Because I was finally willing to acknowledge how immature and irresponsible I’d been with my own life and I was trying to grow up.

About a year ago when my mom’s chihuahua passed away I started to considered getting my mom a dog.

But she was so heartbroken she declared she’d never get a dog ever again.

So I thought maybe I’d get ‘myself’ a chihuahua puppy and give it to my mom when she fell in love with it. Then I thought I’d get two chihuahuas one for each of us.

But I was trying to grow up. Be one with reality. So I decided to accept my mom’s actual words and not get her a dog like she directly asked me.

The blueprint for being a toxic human being is a very simple one. All you have to do is put off reality or even side step it all together.

If I wanted a puppy I could tell myself I was getting a puppy for my mom just so I could play with the puppy.

Or I could grow up. Not do things half way. I could be patient get my life together and then directly get myself a puppy for myself.

So that’s what I decided to do.

And it lasted a full year.

Then my friend had me watch her French bulldog for a month.

And when I had to give that little dog back any resolve in me to wait to get a dog started to crack. I tried to double up on my discipline.

Make rules on what I should accomplish before I could get a dog.

The problem was I was already starting to obsess.

Constantly looking up dog breeds. Watching dog training videos. Researching pet insurance.

Then I’d take a glance at the puppy ads and look up local breeders.

I’d see dogs on Craigslist and then not let myself inquire. But constantly check the ad and when it disappeared I’d panic that I lost the correct dog.

I’m not an expert by any means but my guess is that allowing myself to give into my obsession was not the healthiest or wisest thing to do.

I’d have been much better served calming myself down, accepting that I needed to wait a bit longer and disciplining myself.

But life isn’t just about discipline.

I discipline myself because I’m afraid of my chaotic nature and I have deeply enjoyed the peace of having a more structured and ordered life.

I don’t want to return to chaos. And unfortunately feelings and urges usually lead there.

I saw Kodiak on a breeders site and was immediately struck by how much he looked like Larry. (Larry the dog not Larry the grandpa. Although, in an odd way, Larry the dog did look like Larry the grandpa)

He was a husky Australian Shepard mix. Quite similar to Larry who was a husky border collie. And he lived near by. So I decided I’d go check him out.

And this is how we lie to ourselves. I knew if I saw him I’d get him. I knew that. And yet I tried to say I was just going to go ‘check him out’.

Come on.

That is how you can seriously fuck yourself.

It’s going on two years now I think since I quit smoking cigarettes. It hasn’t been hard, but every now and then I do want a cigarette. There are moments when I really want a cigarette.

But I know if I have even one cigarette I’m done. I’ll be a smoker again. So there is no gray area. There is only don’t do it ever. There is no circumstance in which I can smoke one cigarette. One cigarette equals being a smoker again. Which I refuse to be again.

I try very hard to have that mentality with everything. With really knowing my nature and my susceptibility so I don’t put myself in situations my self cannot win.

But with a puppy because I wanted it so bad and knew it was wrong and I should wait, it was very easy to lie to and to cheat myself.

To tell myself I could do it and not do it at the same time.

Have my cake and eat it too I suppose the saying is.

But there isn’t really such a thing.

Now when I got there Kodiak was the most unfriendly of all the puppies.

And there were a lot of puppies. His mom was a white husky with blue eyes (she was like five percent Pyrenees) and she was very friendly. His grandma was there too and she was a big grey fluffy husky with brown eyes.

Then there was another big grey fluffy husky with one blue eye and one brown eye that was his brother from his mom’s very first litter.

Then there was a tan and black short haired husky that didn’t even look like a husky at all and she had one blue eye and one eye that was half blue, half brown.

She was the friendliest of all the dogs. She climbed into my lap the exact same way Kory had when I found him. Then she instantly went to sleep just like Kory had.

Her name was Luna.

I was pretty dead set on the little black and white puppy with spotted legs mainly because he looked like Larry.

I was going to name him Lawrence and call him Larry for short to honor both grandpa Larry (he’d have been pissed that another one of the dogs had his name) and Larry the dog.

I decided that. Pretty instantly upon seeing him.

All my ‘just checking it out’ died in about two seconds.

Then I couldn’t get Luna out of my lap and the breeder mentioned that she was a puppy that had been returned to them and she also needed a home.

I was like fuck.

Then I think I actually said goddamn it.

I knew I was done and I was about to get two dogs even though I’d just been ‘checking out’ one puppy.

Never delude yourself.

Luna is the best behaved dog I’ve ever had.

For the first couple weeks she minded me perfectly. I swear she was worried about being returned.

Now that she’s fully comfortable the husky stubbornness has come out a little. But she’s still an incredibly easy dog. Doesn’t bark. Just lays down and chills if I take her to coffee or in the car.

I don’t have to put her on a leash most the time. And she’s a great hiking buddy. It’s her favorite thing to do.

Both my mom and brother did not like calling little Larry, Larry. My mom was like ‘I miss my dad please don’t name the dog after my dad.‘

So I was like, ‘okay.‘

So we waited to see what his personality was like before naming him.

He’s very large for his age. And we sort of automatically started calling him bear. Then my brother suggested calling him Kodiak.

Now he’s Kodiak the manic.