This post was inspired by and is dedicated to the delightful and most definitely un-Champ-like Georgie Emmerling, James Emmerling's "nephew."

He should have let me get the bird.

When we were about to buy a house after years of living in apartments that didn’t allow pets, I confided my fondest wish to Keith one night at dinner:  “I want a giant talking bird.  I’ll teach it to tell me it loves me and swear on command.  It’ll sit on my shoulder and we’ll sing my favorite songs together at the top of our lungs.”

His head shot up.  His smile vanished.   Then he said, “Of the two years of living hell that was my first marriage, the only thing I hated slightly less than her was her talking bird.  In fact, I can’t even separate the two of them.  When I’m forced to think of her, I picture that bird.  So unless you want to be my second ex-wife, you’ll never mention wanting a talking bird again.”  

That’s how we wound up with Champ.

He was a black Standard Poodle. Keith said he wanted a smart, good-looking, big dog, and after exhaustive research, he decided the Standard fit his specifications. 

We had two young kids.  A dog was going to mean more work, for me.  If we were getting a dog, I wanted a little thing, one I could dress up for holidays and cuddle to death.

Size won.  Keith named him Champ and he was a real winner, right from the get-go.

He was smart.  He was gorgeous.  He was big.  And he was never, ever still.

He was uncontrollably wild, craved attention pathologically, and was constantly on the prowl for unguarded food. Tall as a man on his hind legs and fast as lightning, he could sweep a counter clean in seconds.  I learned not to make lunches or cook unless I threw him outside first.

He’d go berserk when left alone.  He wrecked all the blinds and knocked down curtains as he frantically raced from window to window looking for us.  He overturned lamps and end tables in his frenzy, broke knickknacks and tore up carpeting. 

Our new house began to look like we were holding someone against their will; all the wood six-panel doors had claw marks on them from top to bottom because when we’d leave, the cur would rake them with his nails during the agony of waiting for us to return.

Ugh.  Technically not him, but close enough. 

The kids loved Champ and he adored us all but Keith was the only one who could control him and he quickly tired of coming home to disasters and hearing my complaints about the dog's latest crimes.  He began to despise Champ.  I despised Champ, too.  None of this would have happened with a bird. 

Occasionally he’d plead, “Margaret, he’s too much work.  You can’t handle him and I can’t be here all day.  He’s destroying our house.  I made a mistake; please, let me find him a new home.”

I wanted nothing more but some perverse thing inside me wouldn’t allow it.  I thought of me and my bird, singing duets.  I thought of the fluffy little dog I imagined dressing up as a pumpkin for Halloween.  I said, through gritted teeth, “Absolutely not.  I love him.  He’s my baby and he's not going anywhere.”

Champ had many vile and disgusting habits and at times they seemed almost calculated for maximum effect since we were usually in a hurry and not thinking of him when we encountered them.  

These habits included regurgitating his just-consumed dog food into our shoes, thoroughly licking our pillows just before we went to bed and eating the crotches out of our underwear.  

But his most irritating offense was his insatiable appetite for socks.  He greedily gulped them down as if he were at an all-you-can-eat oyster bar and sometimes he’d yank them off the kids’ feet before they could stop him. 

Keith and I were pretty good at keeping ours away from him but the kids and their friends were always leaving socks around the house.  Our backyard was the most colorful in the neighborhood since Champ would deposit footwear hither and yon, from his hind end.  I’d periodically clean up after him while bitterly thinking, “This would never happen with a bird.”

One afternoon I took the kids to their game practices before Keith got home from work and I left the dog in the back yard.  As Chuck, our next door neighbor, gleefully told me later, a bunch of the guys had been hanging out on his deck after helping him with some yard work and at some point they noticed Champ, struggling unsuccessfully to expel a sock, when Keith rolled up the drive.  

Chuck hollered at him to join them and have a beer.  Then one of them motioned toward our yard.  “Hey Feike.  Your dog’s been trying to shit a sock for about an hour and he looks pretty worn out.”  For all his effort only an inch or two of bright purple protruded from Champ's hindquarters.

Everyone knew about Champ and how much Keith loathed him.  They also knew I’d wanted a bird and had gotten a dog instead.  Chuck said, “You wouldn’t have this problem with a bird.”

They all watched him as he slowly walked over to the fence and stared at Champ for a while, swearing and shaking his head. 

“C’mon, Feike.  He's gonna have a stroke if you don't do something.  You wouldn't want us to tell your kids their Daddy watched Champ die while he crapped a sock would you?”

They said he turned around and flipped them off  with both hands while they fell all over each other, laughing.  "That's what we'll tell them, too. Go prove your love, Poppy."

He took off his suit jacket.  Rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Threw his tie over his shoulder and hopped the fence.  Then he held out his hand for a work glove, turned and strode across the yard to the dog.

Chuck called his wife and her mother out to watch the show.  They all leaned over the fence, alternately heckling him and cheering him on as they roared: "Atta Boy, be gentle! How 'bout some K-Y Jelly?  Nice and easy now, same way you like it."  And so on.

Removing it took some finesse.  No one there would soon forget the sight of Keith in dress pants, tie and wingtips, carefully pulling a long purple soccer sock out of a poodle’s arse like a magician.

When he was done, they gave him a standing ovation as he wadded up the sock in the glove and hurled it at them.

Chuck assured me they'd never let him live it down.  I made him promise me that and he was as good as his word. The story grew more outrageous with each telling as it swooped and circled the neighborhood, flying in and out of our neighbors' homes and mouths like a giant talking, squawking bird.