Born: June 19,1995, Dundalk, Maryland
Died: June 3, 2010, Baltimore, Maryland
Breed: Mexican short-haired Chihuahua (aka "Taco Bell dog")
Occupation: Detective , Back-up singer for rock band, Flying Wonderdog
Favorite food: Potato stix

As far as flying wonder Chihuahuas go, Gretal was the bomb. 0f course, I’m not quite certain there were any other flying wonderdogs or not. Perhaps possibly one day I will learn of their existence, maybe even through this very website.

She lived to the ripe old age of 15 despite thyroid problems and growing an enormous crystal inside her kidney the size of a golf ball. The vets next door still have it and are keeping it on display in a jar on a shelf. They’d never, needless to say, seen anything like it before or since.

Gretal the flying wonderdog was a gift from my now husband on the 5th year of us meeting and getting together as a couple. I wasn’t even expecting anything. I was just told one Saturday morning to get dressed, we were going to get my anniversary surprise. The next thing I knew we were in Dundalk pulling up to this small salmon pink house that belonged to these two sweet smiling old ladies. And there she was the last puppy left, all 1 and a half pounds of her, flanked by her older Chihuahua parents. Gretal was such a dear tiny little thing, just 9 weeks old. She was born on June 19 which would make her a Gemini, very apropos as sometimes she’d be such a sweet little angel and at others such a hellcat monster.

That day, we took her on a whirlwind tour around Baltimore, carrying her all over our neighborhood of historic Fell’s Point, to later that night bringing her with us to an outdoor cabaret . She was so tiny and cute everyone immediately fell in love with her and were besides themselves at how precious she was.

The night was brilliant, from Blaster Al Ackerman doing a mind blowing spoken word set, to the Haus of Frau, a local drag queen troupe, rocking the mike with an hilarious original skit, to the group Mecca Normal blowing up the stage and the night. Mecca Normal were one of my favorite bands at the time, being one of my five favorite "go to" cassettes rattling around the Ford Festiva when I’d drive to my babysitting job in Towson, or when running around doing day to day errands.

Mecca Normal started out strong with “Throw Silver”, and you’ll never believe what happened next about half way through the song. Gretal the wonder Chihuahua to everyone’s awe, surprise, and disbelief took to the air, flying towards the stage and the music, rocking out with the band.

Everyone, out of the 60 or so people there in that beautiful outdoor garden where the event was held under the stars and the full moon, started clapping and cheering and shouting things like, “Rock out little dog!” and “Go girl go!”

This weird scene went on for the next ten or so minutes while, in the chaos, I started to worry about getting her back. My friend Denny, a sometimes-member of Haus of Frau, but not an actual drag queen, came over, sensing I was about to cry I think, said, “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.” At 6’7” his style of dress was more that of a flamboyant rock star, kind of 70’s roller disco mixed with David Bowie’s spaceman phase, with a little Kiss thrown in for good measure. Denny, standing 6’10” in his silver platform boots, marched in front of Mecca Normal and snatched her out of the air like some good looking hipster King Kong.

And then my hero Denny, with his big red blonde curly white boy afro and his white star shaped sunglasses, started making his way towards us with our tiny little Gretal puppy cradled in his arms. Needless to say, this was the first time we discovered Gretal the Flying Wonderdog had the power of flight. Those sweet, darling old ladies had never said word one.

Some of my friends would tease me that Gretal the Wonderdog spent the first two years of her life in my lap with occasional intervals in other peoples laps, that is when she wasn’t flying around the rowhouse  dive bombing the cat Princess, or our other dog, a boxer named Junior, the whole time with her cute little bouts of yipping, her version of tittering laughter.
                                            

Gretal was very capricious where her flying was concerned. It wasn’t just something you could get her to do on command. The spirit had to move her. When Gretal was moved to pure joy, like when getting together with friends at parties, or when hearing live music like when the Dirt started having band practice in 1997, were the times she would really fly. It was so cute at the Dirt’s band practices, she’d be flying and harmonizing and letting out a series of barks and yips that almost sounded like singing. That first inaugural practice was when the Dirt decided to make Gretal a backup singer. Yes, she really was that good.

The Dirt is me- Mary Knott- words and lead vocals, Jenna Wade on guitar and bass, and Mike Bell on guitar, drums, and everything else but the kitchen sink and maybe even a little of that sometimes, and don’t forget Gretal the Flying Wonderdog providing backup vocals. As I’ve said, "we are the Dirt". We currently have a video up now on You Tube featuring Gretal - “What Do I Look Like?,” with “I Tried Everything.”

As I said, it was very hard to get Gretal to fly on command so during our first gig, at the Moose Lodge in Highlandtown two years later, Gretal didn’t join in with the band until our next to last song “Johnny Come Lately” and then she sort of hung in there for the Dirt’s noise classic “Jen’s Got a Hangover”, with a series of hilarious guttural barks reminiscent of a hangover.

A gig about year later in Philadephia at the Foxhole was memorable for a far different reason, for it was then that we discovered Gretal’s sleuthing abilities. On that evening, Mike Bell was in a tizzy as a fifty dollar collectable Neil Young bong lighter and a pair of Sonic Youth tickets had gone missing from his guitar case. Somehow Mike got the brilliant idea that we could incorporate Gretal and her flying abilities to see if we could find just who had committed the theft. His instinct had been right because outside Gretal all of a sudden started swooping down and barking at a guy named Trey and his friend Leo. And what do you know, when Mike and I went down to investigate, Trey still had the collectable lighter in his hand. Mike was livid and barked, “Hand over that fucking lighter or I’m going to kick your ass!” As Trey is sheepishly handing over the lighter Mike demanded, “Okay now the Sonic Youth tickets. I’ve got a hot date that night and I’ll be darned if I’m missing it because of your dumb ass.”

Gretal had a very strong sense of justice and right and wrong and that, combined with wanting to be like every other cartoon band that also solved mysteries as a sideline, made us realize that this was our calling.

If I had to recount every mystery Gretal helped us to solve in her lifetime this memoir would go way beyond the time I’m allotted here, so  I’ll just name a few:
“The Mystery of Red Rock Mountain”
“The Strange Case of the Big Foot Family”
“The Intruder in the Minivan”
“Zombies - Devils or Pubcrawlers?"( we told her the answer but she needed to do this one on her own), “Who Killed Kurt Cobain?”
“The Mystery of the Missing Groceries”
“Who Destroyed the Outdoor Swing Cushion?" (it was the other dog).

The list goes on and on and Gretal proved to be a great asset as she had an 80% solve rate.  She went as Columbo three Halloweens in a row and as Sherlock Holmes and additional two.

Gretal the Flying Wonderdog was some character, and she is sorely missed by everyone.
                                      ~  Mary Knott

On February 3rd just a few minutes past eight o'clock  Ara died. (2007)

Yesterday, coming home, Gloria found Ara listless. "It was not her," she said. And nobody knew, Arita, or as we called her, Ara better than Gloria or consequently, Gloria, better than our sweet Ara. They were inseparable companions. Where ever Gloria was, just beyond would be Ara, trotting along, from the side and forward to the sound of pounding nails clicking the floor as if she would glide in sync with Gloria’s heeled shoes. Girl energy, diligent, always nervous and hurried, Ara, one of our female puppies for she had a sister, Tai. And, Ara, was always a breath of positive abundance and joy all the time. Always restless, always wanting to play, to kiss, to be with you as company.

For her "play" was to wait for thirty seconds after returning to stand next to you with her ball she would tease you to grab it while in her mouth. Ara, not only our dog, but was our companion and like a daughter. She was mainly Gloria’s. Mine was Ara’s sister, Tai.

Ara was always ready for everything, but grateful for anything. Suffered and selfless as lesser beings, she always enjoyed life and fought for it with all the joy of the world.

For example, neither me nor Gloria learned when at first when she began to stop seeing in one eye as Ara didn’t complain. Ara’s attitude and optimism for life did not change when we had to have it operated either. She always was optimistic in spirit with a joy worthy of being emulated. For her everything was always fine. She appreciated the pampering, food, cookies, our early arrivals home, and on the weekends she even understood when she saw that we were getting dressed to go to work.

It seemed somehow she learned to be more human than us and by force of her actions encouraged us to be nearly as "human" as she was. Attentive, well brought up, prissy, shameless when she thought she done something good, "The Authority" to grumble at her older sister, Tai, when she disobeyed, and always lustrous as a girl, but as strong as an oak- weathering any injustices - that life made at every turn along the way.

Ara had an unhappy early childhood before us and came home with a huge load of mistrust. But it never, ever transformed into long-term resentment. Her first night home, weather from Siberia brought a cold front below zero and she had spent that night hidden under wood work that had piled against the dividing wall outside in our garden. The next day we could not find her and we thought we had lost our newest addition forever. Then, she gave us immediate joy when we discovered she was not lost but hiding in a cardboard box under furniture.

In more than seven and a half years that we were lucky to have her, she gave us permanent joy, kissing, fondling, games, and communications in her language of pampering. Surely we still had many (believing there would be as she was half her lifespan in dog years), the tickle of her little nose, her rose tongue on our face and our lips when she thought it was time for us to wake up.

It will be hard not to hear those little sighs of satisfaction at night to say, “Enough, time to go to bed, enough already. As Ara had finished the day and wanted to rest with family.” Surely her departure will hurt less, we'll laugh at with the memories of those sounds in the court that marked her and her sister when as time moves forward. But possibly these memories will never us to forget her aroma and her shiny and lustrous hair we stroked when she would rub against us.

But still today our memory of Ara hurts a lot, as somehow we knew upon receipt we named that dog, she is and will remain for us a true shrine to the integrity, affection, love of goodness as reflected with Gloria’s amazing reason. The void left will be filled with fond memories forever.

Our, Ara, Arita, seemed to have her own wisdom, a wisdom she brought the world on the morning she would eight years as we remember her. Though always filled with energy, in a hurry, always trotting, she realized she had accomplished her mission and her master's degree in a timely manner and left at seven years and three hundred and sixty four days and fourth. True to her nature, not even to let us know it was as bad as it would turn out to be for she seemed that at any moment she was going to recover and be fine. She never complained that last day, would not allow herself to be a burden. It was a a stormy night like few others, she remained calm, serene and aware until her last moment. Ara died in the car on the way to find a veterinarian. She made no noise, never complained, let alone even a whimper. She said goodbye with one last look and then silence she rested.

But it was us who broke the silence with our tears mixed with our sadness, anger, helplessness and disbelief. Our Ara: humble, located, polite and considerate of others. But we could not be.

And to close the circle our our encounter with such a wise soul, we laid our Ara to sleep in our garden in the same place where she slept her first night when we had that winter cold front. For surely as we take from her lessons on gratitude of life, we will the always remember the first day and the days that we had together that followed. And with a love she helped nurture in us that can only continue to grow.

Love always, Lalo, Gloria´s husband xo

Martes 3 de febrero.

Hoy, apenas algunos minutos pasadas las ocho de la mañana, se nos murió Ara.

Ayer, a volver a casa, Gloria la encontró decaída. “No era ella” decía. Y nadie conocía a Ara mejor que Gloria, ni a Gloria mejor que Ara. Eran compañeras inseparables. Donde fuera Gloria, allá iba Ara. Trotando detrás, al costado y adelante al son del golpeteo de sus uñas en el piso flotante como si anduviera con zapatitos de taco. Femenina, diligente, siempre nerviosa y apurada, Ara era mucho más que una de nuestras perritas. Era un soplo de energía y alegría a cada rato. Siempre incansable, siempre con ganas de jugar, de darte un beso, de estar contigo. Para ella “después jugamos” era un stand by de treinta segundos tras el que volvía a ponerse al lado tuyo con su pelota o su chiche en la boca.

Ara, más que nuestra perrita, era nuestra compañera. La de Gloria, la mía y la de Tai. Ella siempre estaba dispuesta para todo, y agradecida por todo. Sufrida y abnegada como pocos seres, ella siempre disfrutaba de la vida y peleaba por ella con toda la alegría del mundo.

Ni nos enteramos cuando empezó a dejar de ver de un ojo. Ni notamos diferencia alguna cuando se lo tuvimos que operar. Ella siempre veía todo color optimismo, con una alegría digna de ser emulada. Para ella todo siempre estaba bien. Te agradecía los mimos, la comida, las galletas, la llegada temprano a casa a cualquier hora que fuera, y los fines de semana cuando veía que no nos vestíamos para ir a trabajar. Aprendió a ser más humana que nosotros y por la fuerza de sus actos nos estimuló a ser casi tan “humanos” como ella misma. Atenta, educadita, remilgada, vergonzosa cuando pensaba que algo no había hecho bien, “pizarrera” para rezongar a su hermana mayor cuando ésta desobedecía, y siempre lustrosa como una chica kerastasse, pero fuerte como un roble para capear las inclemencias –injusticias diría yo- que la vida le ponía a cada paso.

Ara tuvo una primera infancia infeliz y llegó a casa con una carga de desconfianza enorme, que nunca, jamás dejó que se transformara en rencor. Su primera noche en casa, a la intemperie de la Siberia que era el fondo entonces, la pasó escondida bajo toneladas de maderas de obra que habíamos apilado contra la medianera. Al otro día no la podíamos encontrar y pensamos que la habíamos perdido para siempre apenas llegada. La segunda gran alegría que nos dio fue saber que no se había perdido. (la primera fue llegar –bebota enorme- en una caja de cartón en donde yo sólo pude imaginarla, ya que inmediatamente la dejó para encontrar sus primeros lugares bajo los muebles). En los más de siete años y medio que tuvimos la suerte de tenerla, nos regaló permanentes alegrías, besos, caricias, juegos, demostraciones y hasta palabras en su lenguaje de mimos. Seguramente llevaremos por años (ojalá que todos los que nos queden y sean muchos), la cosquilla de su lengüita rosadita en nuestra cara y nuestros labios a la hora que ella creía que teníamos que despertarnos. Será difícil no escuchar sus suspiros satisfechos por la noche al acostarnos, como diciendo, “Bueh! Terminó el día y vamos a descansar en familia”. Seguramente cuando duela menos su partida, nos volveremos a reir de los gruñidos con que le marcaba la cancha a su hermana cuando se trataba de estar más cerca de nosotros. Y posiblemente nunca nos desprendamos de su aroma siempre limpio y su pelo brillante y lustroso que te acariciaba cuando se frotaba contra ti. Hoy Ara nos duele y mucho, pero como de alguna manera supimos al recibirla y le pusimos por nombre, esa perrita fue, es y seguirá siendo para nosotros un verdadero altar a la integridad, al afecto, al amor del bueno como le decía con increíble razón Gloria, a la entrega sin medida y –hoy- al vacío que sólo se empezará a llenar a medida que en él decanten los recuerdos que nos deja.

Ara, Arita, parecía tener una sabiduría propia, una sabiduría tal que la trajo al mundo harían mañana ocho años. Siempre apurada, siempre al trote, entendió que había cumplido su misión y su maestría en tiempo y forma y se marchó a los siete años y trecientos sesenta y cuatro días y cuarto. Fiel a su forma de ser, ni siquiera nos dejó saber que estaba tan mal como resultó estar. Parecía que de un momento a otro se iba a terminar de recuperar. No se quejó, no se permitió molestar, y en una noche de tormenta como pocas, mantuvo la calma, la serenidad y la conciencia hasta el último momento. Ara se nos murió en el coche de camino a buscar un veterinario. No hizo ruido, ni se quejó, ni mucho menos lloró. Se despidió con una última mirada y un silencio descansado. Fuimos nosotros los que rompimos el silencio con nuestro llanto mezclado de tristeza, rabia, impotencia e incredulidad. Ara se fue como era: humilde, ubicada, educada y considerada por demás. Y como para cerrar su círculo, duerme en nuestro jardín en el mismo lugar en que durmió su primera noche. Seguramente para que la recordemos siempre como el primer día. Con un amor que sólo puede seguir creciendo.

My name is Carmen and my reality is very similar to that of many people my age. I am now on my 79th year in life and have been a widow since 1989. I have three children and now each one grown to an adult has naturally formed their own life which at times has left me feeling a little lonely.

So on August 5,1994, a Veterinarian in my neighborhood, Carlos, told me he had a gift for me. When I went to visit his office he had a very small  female dog barely the size of a single floor tile.

Some kids out of school had found her and taken her to Carlos, the vet, to take care of her when she was just 15 days old or so. So that day, this little dog, I would name Tania came into my life. My family is originally from the border of Brazil and Tania is a very Brazilian name that I liked, so I decided to call her this name. Tania filled a large space in my life and she was like another daughter to me. She didn’t take the place of a dog (animal), she took the place of another child in my life.

Always characterized very intelligent Tania lived for a few years with another male dog that was one of my daughters. Once Tania managed to open the door and escape with him down the street on an adventure. He was very funny and had character. He was a race dog “barbilla” which are known to be sharp and stronger than many breeds.

Tania lived for 16 years with me and shared a variety of experiences. She and I moved house three times and she was always my faithful companion. Sometimes I had health problems and no one could get Tania from under my bed. She remained there until she saw me get up again when she knew I was feeling better.

She went everywhere with me and my life began to gain a lot of sense when she arrived.
Unfortunately nearing our last days in August 2010 Tania appeared to have grown a big lump in her nose that continued for a few days and it was diagnosed a malignant tumor. In October 16, 2010 we had to put her to sleep because this tumor could not be cured and had begun to cause her a lot of suffering.

I have no words to express all the gratitude and immense love I felt and still feel for my Tania.
In this reminder to honor her life can only dedicate a simple but profound phrase that expresses exactly how I feel:

"Tania, you're always in my heart"

Your mom, Carmen.
Uruguay

Mi nombre es Carmen y mi realidad es muy similar a la de muchas personas de mi edad.
Ahora tengo 79 años y vivo sola. Tengo tres hijos y cada uno se fue como es natural y formó su vida hace varios años y yo siendo viuda desde el año 1989 me sentía un poco sola. Así un dia 05 de agosto de 1994 un  veterinario de mi vecindario,  Carlos, me dijo que tenía un regalo para mí. Cuando fui a su consultorio de visita él tenía una perra barbilla muy pequeña de tamaño que apenas alcanzaba a medir como una baldoza.
Unos niños saliendo del colegio la encontraron y la llevaron a lo del veterinario Carlos para que la cuidara cuando esa perra barbilla tenía apenas 15 días de nacida aproximadamente.
Así fue que llegó a mi vida Tania.
Mi familia es oriunda de la frontera con Brasil y Tania es un nombre muy brasileño que siempre me gustó, así que decidí llamarla así.
Tania vino a llenar un espacio muy grande en mi vida y fue como otra hija para mí. Ella no ocupaba el lugar de un perro, sino que ocupaba el lugar de un hijo en mi vida.
Siempre se caracterizó por ser muy  inteligente y convivió desde niña con otro perro que era de mi hija y Tania se las ingeniaba para abrir la puerta y escapar ella junto con él para la calle.
Era muy graciosa y tenía su carácter. Los perros de su raza suelen tener un carácter bastante marcado fuerte.
Tania vivió por 16 años junto a mí y compartimos varias vivencias. Ella y yo nos cambiamos de casa en 3 ocasiones y siempre fue mi fiel compañera.
Algunas veces yo tuve problemas de salud y nadie podía sacar a Tania de debajo de mi cama. Ella permanecía allí hasta que veía que yo me levantaba nuevamente y me cuando ella sabía que yo ya estaba sintiéndome mejor.
A todas partes iba conmigo y mi vida comenzó a cobrar mucho sentido cuando ella  llegó.
Lamentablemente a finales del mes de agosto de 2010 a Tania le apareció un gran  bulto dentro de su nariz que fue creciendo en pocos días y se trataba de un tumor maligno.
El 16 de octubre de 2010 tuvimos que ponerla a dormir ya que no podían curarla y había comenzado a sufrir mucho.
No tengo palabras para expresar toda la gratitud y amor inmenso que sentía y aun siento hacia Tania.
En su recordatorio para su tumba solo pude dedicarle una frase simple pero profunda que expresa exactamente lo que siento:

“Tania, siempre estarás en mi corazón”

Tu mamá Carmen.

full name: CANDY DARLING - named after the transexual andy warhol factory superstar.



"candy was a girl from out on the island, in the back room she was everybody’s darling..." - lou reed-"walk on the wild side"

nickname: CANDERELLA - candy combined with cinderella or barberella

born: JANUARY 25,1982 ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND

died: APRIL 4,1997 BALTIMORE, MARYLAND age 15+ years (107 dog years)

breed: RHODESIAN RIDGEBACK aka lion hound

my good girl CANDY started life in a house that used to be a hotel that george washington slept in at some point in his travels on u.s.29, the runt of a litter of 8 that had been abandoned by their mother, who one day ran off after 3 weeks of not taking well to being a mother. i was living at the time with my girlfriend janie, and a friend of hers called one day saying her mother's dog had abandoned its litter and she couldn't take care of 8 puppies by herself and was freaking out and "would we like a puppy that had to be hand-fed with an eyedropper and needed constant attention?" janie already had an albino rabbit named EDGAR WINTER but we said "yeah sure we'll do it". i chose CANDY because even though she was the runt of the litter, she seemed more active, alert, and frankly, smarter than the rest. and she was the cutest, all caramel colored, with a perfect white spot on her chest. she looked like my favorite candy , goetze's caramel creams, made right here in baltimore since before i was born. and she had stunning black "eye make-up" in an egyptian motif, that reminded me of a photo of candy darling, the transexual.

we took her home and nurtured her, and she grew big and strong in no time. she would eat constantly if you let her, a feat she continued well into her later years. that dog could EAT, the sTinkier the better! one time it was the armpits out of janie’s angora sweater. one day when she was about 3 months old, she ate a bag of pot right out of janie’s purse! a quarter ounce of stinky high-grade marijuana, right out of the baggie. i couldn't believe my eyes, and i was very worried about her impending mental state, as well as janie’s. after about a half an hour she started whimpering and shaking. the dog, not janie. janie was mad as hell about the angora sweater already. i picked up CANDY and held her tight to my chest and she stopped. my dog and i were stoned together. it seemed like holding her to my chest was the only thing that was keeping the both of us from totally freaking out; this pattern would continue on for the rest of our lives. janie suggested that we needed to think of an activity that would be pleasant for all of us, so we decided we would all go to burger king. i put on my leather jacket with CANDY buttoned up inside, we climbed inside my '68 pontiac tempest, and we were off. her first car ride !!! i explained the situation to the cashier at burger king when he remarked that we couldn't have a dog in the restaurant, but he gave us our whoppers and we ate them in the car, then cruised around some more. eventually CANDY came down form her little space voyage, and she never went anywhere NEAR marijuana again.

when CANDY was a little more than a year old she got herself knocked up. she was in heat, and every time you would open the front door there would be every male dog in the neighborhood ready to run in. one day CANDY ran out and bolted down the street, followed by every male dog in the neighborhood. she came back the next day, and about a month later we noticed she was pregnant. she had 6 puppies, 3 males that looked like the neighborhood german shepard, and 3 females that looked just like her. we had no trouble getting rid of them. motherhood went well for CANDY and she came out of the experience with sharpened senses and great instincts, and very protective of me and our "space". shortly afterwards, i got rid of janie too. she wanted to take custody of CANDY and there was no way i was going to let that happen. in retaliation, she took all of CANDY's baby photos. i have a couple shots of her with me and janie at the beach, but that's about it.

CANDY and i got a groovy new bachelor pad in takoma park, maryland at the northern tip of washington, dc, and i got a new girlfriend too, sarah, who was known not only for her cuteness, but also her great punk-rock haircuts and dye jobs. CANDY loved sarah and the feeling was mutual. this began another life-long pattern of CANDY picking my girlfriends for me. CANDY was a chick-magnet anyway, and the perfect conversation starter. but if she didn't like someone i always took it as a bad sign. she really had great instincts, and very sensitive. and like all rhodesian ridgebacks, who were bred to hunt lions in africa, CANDY HATED CATS. except for VELCRO, a little black runt that my friend mark found that everyone thought was a kitten, but it never got any bigger. VELCRO had huge paws and claws that would stick to anything. mark also had a samoyed huskie named MAX, and had invented the sport of "dog-boarding". he hitched a harness to MAX and he would pull mark all over town. that's what huskies do. i started dog-boarding with CANDY, and while mark and i would rip up and down the streets and parking lots, poor ol' darryl had to propel himself. even though he was the best skateboarder in town, he couldn't compete with dog power.

it was about this time that CANDY got hit by a car. we were on our way out for a walk when CANDY slipped her choker to chase a CAT and ran into the street where a school bus had stopped and was letting off children. a man in a blue '67 plymouth fury stationwagon sped around the school bus and hit her broadside and kept right on going, tossing her to the other side of the road where all the children were. everyone stopped traffic and i ran to my car and got out a blanket and i carried her stretcher-style with help from a passer-by. we put her in the back seat and i sped off to the nearest animal hospital. i didn't have any money with me and the first guy said no way, but he could put her to sleep for a dollar. i stormed out of there and took off full speed down university blvd. towards the only other place i knew of, COLLEGE PARK ANIMAL HOSPITAL, where DR. SUSAN KING took her in immediately and performed all the life-saving surgeries she needed. among other things, 3 of her 4 legs were shattered, and she had to have metal pins and rods inserted to hold her together. i had to carry her everywhere for months until she was strong enough to walk again. eventually she bounced back stronger than ever, but didn't do well with cold, damp weather. i never liked it either. vet visits freaked her out for the rest of her life. hospital visits freak me out. in 2009 i had a bad motorcycle accident and i ended up with a lot of metal inside me holding my right leg and foot together. CANDY inspires me every day to go for a walk and take the long way home whenever possible.

a bunch of girlfriends eventually came and went, but CANDY stayed faithfully by my side. eventually i had a very cute girlfriend named mary owens, and she stayed by my side longer than any of the others. by this time, i was the lead singer of a dc punk-rock band called THE PLATINUM SLUGS, a gang of crazed lunitics that caused mayhem and good times wherever they went. mary and i rented a cape cod style bungalow in hyattsville maryland with her sister jean, who was the keyboard player for the slugs, who at this point were more like a pack of wolves . skateboard legend and drummer for the platinum slugs darryl moved in too, as did the slugs rhythm guitarist brian, when his wife kicked him out yet again. a bunch of other musicians and artists eventually filtered in until we had a peak of 12. CANDY was "the slughouse dog" and met many a famous and obscure rock-n-roller in her life. the house was catty-corner to the playground of the local elementary school, and CANDY quickly became known as the dog that would run through the halls whenever someone left the door open, and the dog who stole their big red kickballs every time she got the chance. rhodesian ridgebacks always take advantage of that chance. life was good...

eventually, mary and i moved to my hometown of baltimore. her sister jean followed soon after, and jean found a chihuahua puppy in the corner garbage can one day. SALLY FROM THE ALLEY would go on to become CANDY's best friend ever. eventually, mary left me and CANDY stayed faithfully by my side. i decided that i could no longer stand living in baltimore and wanted to move to nyc, where i was already gigging constantly with jennifer blowdryer and my surf-rock combo renamed "the con-airs" as her back-up band. there wasn't much work in baltimore at the time and i took a job in the hamptons with my friend nick. we worked together refinishing the woodwork in a 26-room mansion that once belonged to the aries poet william wordsworth, and currently belonged to "baby jane" holzer, who was one of those andy warhol factory superstars. i gave some money to my friend dick hertz, who is now a transexual named robyn, to feed and take care of CANDY until i could finish the job and get back to pick her up.

about a month later jennifer started getting calls from my friends back home saying that my dog was running the streets of my west baltimore neighborhood looking for the master who had abandoned her. no one had bothered to take her in and i raced back to baltimore to find her. eventually, i saw a cute girl about a block away taking off her jacket and tying it around CANDY's neck. I FOUND HER ! "hey, thats MY dog" i yelled, and ran up to the girl who identified herself as jenna. she looked familiar, and we soon discovered our friend in common was local writer and performance artist mary knott. we had heard all about each other already through mary, the town gossip, and we were soon on our way to hang out in the park, when jennas boyfriend came screeching to a stop in front of us and hollered "get the f**k in this car NOW". that wouldn't be the last i would see of jenna....

but that would be the last i would see of baltimore for a good while. i put CANDY in my '63 buick special along with some clothes, a guitar, and a handfull of daniel johnston tapes. i put all my records and personal recordings in jeans basement, left everything else behind, and headed back to new york, where CANDY and i would live in my car together until i finished that job in east hampton and got paid. nick rented me a room in his lower east side apartment and CANDY and i settled in there, but with a pocket full of money and a broken heart my drinking and drugging soon got the best of me. soon enough we were couch-surfing, and then sleeping in the subway tunnels. CANDY stayed faithfully by my side, until one day when we were out panhandling and i walked into a bodega to get some cigarettes and tied her up to the parking meter outside. when i left the store i walked right past her and continued walking around the lower east side in a drunken stupor for a couple hours before realizing that i didn't have my dog with me. i tried to retrace my steps for the next couple hours until I FOUND HER, still tied to the parking meter in front of the bodega. the crowd gathered around her told me she wouldn't let anyone near her, and scolded me for being such a horrible person. i decided for her own best welfare i should find someone else to take care of her. jennifer agreed; she lived in a bad neighborhood on 10th between aves. c & d and she was more than happy to have a dog like CANDY to walk around with. it was about this point in my life that i first met SCATTERBRAINS.

so eventually i sobered up, and got myself into a squat on east 13th street, where many of the abandoned apartment buildings were being squatted by artists, musicians, and political activists, or being taken over by drug dealers like in the movie "new jack city". CANDY soon moved in and did an excellent job protecting our "space". one day i ran into my friend steve and told him i was looking for work. he said he could get me a job where he worked at benny’s burritos at 6th and ave.a. when i showed up for my first day of work as a bicycle delivery boy, i saw the cutest girl i'd ever seen in my life behind the counter. i asked steve to introduce us and we hit it off immediately, and SCATTERBRAINS and i have remained close friends ever since. this would put the human date around mid-january 1992 because CANDY's 10th birthday happened soon afterwards. i threw her a big party at the thompkins square park dog run, with pound cake for everyone. afterwards we walked down to benny’s burritos and CANDY got to meet SCATTERBRAINS. they hit it off immediately. CANDY still had really great instincts. she was 10 years old now, older than most ridgebacks get to enjoy, and although she seemed to have lost her once robust body mass and her black muzzle had turned to grey, she was at the top of her game as far as being a dog was concerned. it was about this time that she invented her most insane antic ever - the back-dance! she would lie on her back with her legs in the air, tongue hanging out, and a maniacal look in her eyes, and wriggle around like an alligator - it was CRAZY looking! but every time i would go to snap a picture she would stop. she was very sensitive and intelligent and had a huge vocabulary, to the point where i had to spell words, and she figured out how to spell too! she loved new york city, with all its smells, crazy people, noises, and new places to walk around and leave your "graffiti ", as well as check out what the other dogs had to "say". she would always hide my work boots, but never my sneakers.

many girlfriends and a few bands later we ended up in an apartment in greenpoint brooklyn, right on the east river. fortunately the cute girl in the apartment right above me was amy, who i knew as a waitress from benny’s burritos. i was on the road a lot and needed someone to look in on CANDY and feed her while i was gone and she agreed to do it. that worked out well, but sometimes CANDY would get a little destructive if i was gone for more than a week, one time un- upholstering an entire red leather chair ! eventually my rent was going up and CANDY was slowing down, now approaching her 15th birthday. i was on the road constantly, had a girlfriend in chicago, and decided to leave nyc and stay in a room at mary knotts house in baltimore for a while. mary had a chihuahua named GRETAL, who would become CANDY's last close friend, as well as a full fledged member of a band, the dirt, mary and i would form with jenna, the girl that had found CANDY walking the streets of west baltimore and was ready to take her home until i showed up.

as spring rolled around, CANDY really started slowing down. her eyesight was gone, her hearing was bad, and her body was aching from the rods and pins that were put in her legs 13 years ago. many days she couldn't walk at all and had to be carried outside to do her business. i had to make that dreadful decision, and on april 4, 1997 i had her put to sleep at the local vets office. she was "buried at sea", her body tied up in a blanket and weighted down with rocks, i slipped her into the baltimore harbor in the middle of the night. there were some gigs coming up for me in the mid-west, so i packed a couple changes of clothes into my guitar case, put everything else in storage...
...and 3 days later i was on a greyhound bus bound for chicago to begin my new life WITHOUT THE BEST DOG IN THE WHOLE WORLD EVER - CANDY - faithfully by my side.

                                                    mike bell
"to hear the platinum slugs and other music by mike bell"
http://soniclove.bandcamp.com/
 
platinum slugs video link

First, it is important to know that in my country, Uruguay, only recently did we pass a new animal protection law. In Latin America society at large are still a bit backwards socially when it comes to animal care-taking. For example people leave the dogs in the street because there are no advertising campaigns promoted by the State to educate people and only just now has there been a law passed to penalize people for animal abuse.

This is the story about two stray dogs from Uruguay, my country, Kevin and Cindy. They were my best friends and especially my best teachers of many important lessons.

I begin with Kevin who was the first to enter into my life. In 1994 my older brother returned home one special day and told my mother news that he had seen a dog on the street that seemed to be a crossbreed and was part Doberman apparently abandoned. I just returned from Spain where I was been living and studying. He spotted the dog far from our house in a very distant neighborhood so we three, my brother, mom and I traveled by car go see if we could find him. When we arrived we did not know if it would be that day we might find him because he being on the street would walk to various places or might have even traveled to another town.

But that was my lucky day. The dog crossbred with Doberman appeared about 50 yards away from us, walking distracted and did not see us. When I saw him I realized it was large, and would have been several months of age or even one year’s age. Finally he noticed and watched from a distance until eventually he ran to my mother who was sitting and he laid his head right on her lap. My mother stroked him. We all looked at each other and we knew that we would take him home with us. That same day we took him with us we stopped at a vet clinic for care. There we learned that he was about 8-9 months by his teeth.
We took him with us to our house as I still lived with my mother but he was mine, I adopted him personally. That day I said: “Now this is my dog ​​and he will be called ....? (I did not know what name to choose at first I confess) my mother and brother suggested names. My mother watched an Argentine soap opera so she suggested for him to be named Catrier after the lead male character but  finally I picked the name Kevin after Kevin Costner from seeing the movie the "The bodyguard".

I am journalist, but at that time I embarked on a spiritual path and began healing people with use of techniques such as Reiki. People often came to my house given that I often held self-help meetings and courses there and when Kevin met people who had a complicated day or some sort of problem, he would bark in a strange manner, all the while giving them strange looks as well. It was evident he could detect when something was wrong and soon enough, people would call to ask "can I go to your house so that Kevin can meet my husband?"

Along with Kevin I moved of home, I went to live at 35 km from the capital in a beach area called Solymar. There I was building my house. I lived with Kevin very happy and had many special experiences.

Kevin was a little aggressive with other dogs, and I suppose that this behavior is due to trauma he had in his childhood. Kevin never fought with anyone yet he always had to be alone in the garden of the house and if he was with me in the street he had to go on leash.

So when he was five years old I decided to pay a dog psychologist to see Kevin. Many people until this day still laugh at that. Dr. Veterinario Etcheverry was the only dog psychologist around the country and was also a Reiki master. Dr. Etcheverry would visit once a week at my house and Kevin would sit in the middle of the room filled with of all people that who had known Kevin since I had adopted him. Each person was instructed to have something to talk about Kevin as he sat in the middle of that meeting while Dr. Etcheverry wrote his diagnosis, lol! The therapy did not yield very good results I should confess. :)

So then I decided to train him. Twice a week as we were moving from Solymar to the capital Montevideo to a most beautiful neighborhood called El Prado, Kevin was trained to learn to obey. Being the only dog that not purebred in this area he attracted attention from the other dogs. Kevin barked at every dog but he would ignore the small breeds who ironically barked at him.

When Kevin was 10 near our house on Sunday’s was a fair and a friend of mine worked there. So Sunday’s I went to visit my friend and she told me that in an area outside the fairgrounds there was construction going on for building a house and there was a dog who befriended her young daughter.

My friend told me that the dog was small and had something wrong with its right hind leg. One Sunday the mother of the small dog was no longer and never returned. The caretaker of the house under construction drank heavily and visited my friend in her booth at the fair with this small dog in his arms and in the other hand he has a radio with blaring a loud cheesy song popularly called "Lucero" while he declared soon the construction would be complete and the dog would tossed into the streets with the trash.

After my friend told me that story I decided to "hijack" the small dog. It was a kidnapping and fun. While two of my friends waited in the car I entered the field and I heard snoring drunk man sleeping soundly and in his shirt was small dog lying and looking at me with astonishment. I took it in my arms and I ran, jumped in the car and we were very nervous as when we were kids and cometíamos mischief. We took her to see the vet Dr Monica.

Monica vaccinated her and afterwards I carried the small dog to my house. I’ll never forget her eyes as she watched me throughout the entire journey. Her name was influenced by my Italian grandmother Querubina who used to tell me the the fairy tale of Cinderella. So I decided to do a mix of Cinderella and Cindy Lauper and named this small female dog Cindy.

Now Kevin was no longer alone and in 2000 he had a sister. Cindy was five months old and she had a hip fracture was badly repaired. We could not perform a surgery because of many risks she could have faced but her quality of life improved greatly with good treatment. Despite all the problems that Cindy had in her life, she was an example for me, she always happy, she jumped, played and lived all her life being very childish.

Cindy was always naughty and broke things from age five months to 10 years old in which she lived. Cindy and Kevin formed a perfect duo. Together they were dynamite. Cindy taught Kevin to socialize. And they were together all day. Cindy seemed the shadow of Kevin, she pursued him everywhere.

Although they were not kindred, they were physically very similar, and many people thought that Kevin was the father of Cindy.

They taught me many things, especially unconditional love, joy despite the problems, the unconditional friendship. They participated in all meetings with my friends, people at work, and parties. And, we went everywhere together. We went and lived in Brazil from 2005 to 2007.

Another funny story of Cindy as she had many: one day I went to have coffee with a friend in the morning at a Restaurant in Florianopolis, Brazil. Kevin and Cindy were waiting in my car, which by the way my car was always parked in a place where they could see me. I saw people walking down the street when passing near my car looked to inside and they laughed. At one point I went to the car to see if everything was ok.

Then I noticed that the driver side seat was broken, completely shattered in its back-support. That was made by Cindy. It was her way of protesting. You see she was very naughty, even then at five years of age just like when she was a puppy.

We returned to Uruguay in 2007. We went to live in another town resort called El Pinar, near Sol y Mar. I had sold my house. Then we moved to Montevideo, the capital, because I needed to be close by my work. We rarely separated. Only by my work when I was traveling for my job would Kevin and Cindy be in the care of my mother or some friend of mine that was installed in my house to accompany them.

In 2010 I traveled once a month to work in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Returning from one of those trips I came to my house to stay with Kevin and Cindy and a friend of mine who was watching them for me. But when I arrived, there was a note stuck on my bedroom door caused as my friend laughed.

That paper said: "Please close the doors because Cindy breaks everything!" Kevin and Cindy truly were my true friends and my family. For me they were not just dogs, they were like my children.

On April 3, 2011 Cindy died. A month later, on May 6 at the same time, 3.21 minutes Kevin also died. They left a great void in my life when they left. But they filled it with beautiful memories.

They also taught me how to care for others and learn to understand why we behave the way do, what motivates behavior in each of us. How we can be the same and still be unique. There is an embassy of them forever in my soul.  - Sonia Daiany, Uruguay