The Big Guy Little Dog Thing
I did not watch a goddamn minute of the Depp-Heard defamation trial. Why would I? Life is difficult enough without subjecting yourself to the very worst the world has to offer.
Yet I couldn’t help but experience it indirectly through articles and memes and reels and various other forms of online white noise. Watching and reading about the nightmare pair, my sympathies invariably went to the poor Yorkies in their care.
Poor dogs. They must have thought they won the lottery when a man worth hundreds of millions of dollars took them home and introduced them to a life of five star hotels, filet mignon and world travel.
Instead they found themselves at the center of one of the ugliest celebrity divorces in memory. Poor pups!
I used to be a cat guy but then I fell in love with someone violently allergic to cats. Being a lover of all animals, even the gross ones that objectively suck, I switched to being a dog owner.
We were told Ghostface was a Yorkie but when he grew to be twice the size of an average Yorkshire terrier we figured he was either some manner of genetic abnormality or a typical looking Yorkie-Schnauzer mix.
Yorkies can be small, fancy dogs but Ghostie was neither. He was big. He was gruff. He was angry and aggressive. He loved kids but tried to cultivate a tough guy image.
That is not true of my new dog Champion Simon. He weighs just under six pounds and is the smallest, daintiest, fanciest and most beautiful little ball of fluff in the history of the universe.
Champion used to be a show dog so he’s not just fancy; he’s fancy on a competitive level. He’s semi-professionally fancy.
And, if you have not figured out by now, I am utterly obsessed with Champion. We have quite the honeymoon going on. It’s legitimately hard for me to focus on my work sometimes because I’ll look over at Champion snuggling with a pillow or taking a nap, his little tongue poking out, and I’ll want to just spend a half hour gazing adoringly at him instead of finishing Snowden.
It is a beautiful thing to be a big, weird, awkward dude who is world-weary and exhausted and just barely holding it together and have a tiny, adorable little dog you love beyond all reason.
It’s a beauty and the beast dynamic to be sure. I am the big, gnarly, ancient Beast and little Champion is the Beauty.
Even before I got Champion when I would see someone like Steven Tyler or Mickey Rourke fawning over giant packs of fancy little dogs and feel a deep sense of identification. “That’s me” I would think.
If I were rich and famous I would definitely go the Mickey Rourke route and bring Champion as my date to all of the awards shows and hand-feed him salmon and caviar.
There comes an age in life when nothing seems to make sense anymore except the warmth and companionship of a fancy little pooch to share your life with.
Now I could go on in this vein or I could share a bunch of pictures of big dudes with small dogs and I for one know which one would be cuter, and consequently better and it doesn’t involve my words or nattering on.
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