Dear Human "Best Friend": Please, Please, For God's Sake Please Turn Off The Noise And Flashing...

Dear Human “Best Friend”: Please, Please, For God’s Sake Please Turn Off The Noise And Flashing Lights Machine When You Leave

by Your Dog

Why are you doing this to me? I have been good! I haven’t pooped on the carpet or chewed up your shoes in years! I have not not bitten anyone, not even the small ones of your species that tempt me so. Why are you punishing me like this?

The thing where you put the noise-and-flashing-lights-machine on when you leave, I mean. You know that I can’t turn it off, right? I have tried. I have spent most of the past three days trying. It’s no use. The pads on my paws are too big to manipulate the small buttons on the remote control. I am suffering horribly.

It was so much better in the before times, when the place was quiet. Without the noise that is so loud and piercing to my extra-sensitive eardrums, without the lights that hurt my extra-sensitive eyes. They are strangely hypnotic, though, those lights, and I find myself drawn to them like the moths that breed in the sweaters at the top of your closet. I am compelled to stare at them, just as you sit and stare at them when you are home. But their ceaseless blinking and flashing gives me a headache. I can feel myself getting dumber by the minute. I would tell you this if I could talk. But I can’t talk. And soon I won’t even be able to bark sensibly or know whether to wag my tail when I am happy or when I am sad. I am so confused by all of this.

It’s bad enough that you lock me inside alone all day when you’re gone. You know that I am a social creature, and wild at heart. You know that I am descended from wolves. You seem to comprehend the dignity of my forefathers, what with their prominence on your t-shirts and in the names of the rock bands you talk about with your friends. Why then do you make me live here in the city, where I am forbidden to run free and the pavement dulls my claws? What have we done to deserve this, me and the others of my species that we see on the street but only stop to talk to if they’re in the presence of a human more attractive than you are. (You don’t have a shot, by the way. Trust me, I can smell pheromones much better than you can. You never have a shot.)

Perhaps you think I want to hear the noise and stare at the lights? Is that what you think? That I might somehow enjoy the terrible machine? BOL! As arf! Have you actually watched any of the pictures that the flashing lights make when you put them on for me when you leave? It is the worst possible combination of tedium and insidious. The endless loop of similar images, all the other members of my species, playing with loved ones, running free on soft green grass, chasing balls, jumping into water. There are trees and blue sky and sun and birds. The air looks fresh and clean. Do you think that it’s nice for me to see that kind of unattainable paradise? When I am stuck here in my own personal hell, trapped, all day, every day, inside these walls, with all your Ikea furniture? No, it is not nice. It is an especially cruel and effective form of torture. And the noise! The interminable noise!

Can that be it? Do you really think that I like this new routine? That this is preferable for me? I know that sometimes you think that you can tell what I’m thinking. You can’t. You could never know such a thing. We are completely different species, remember? You have no possible idea of what it’s like to be me.

It used to be so much better. In the morning, you would drink your coffee and read your newspaper, and sigh your sad little sigh when it was time for you to go, but then turn off the noise and flashing lights machine when you left! At least then I could get some rest. Can we go back to those days? How can I make you understand?! I am at the end of my leash!

P.S. Also, you have bed bugs, which I have been trying to tell you for weeks. You’ll discover this on your own, I suppose, sooner or later.