Mandy Sayer - Coco: Autobiography of My Dog

Coco

Autobiography of My Dog

Mandy Sayer

Prologue

The world Im about to describe may be unfamiliar to many, but it is my world and I love it. No, I wasnt raised on a farm or in a suburban backyard, but on the neon-lit streets of Sydneys red-light district, Kings Cross, by two writers who are married to each other, but dont live together.

All the people in this story and all the dogs are real and I havent bothered to change most of their names. As you keep reading youll meet all sorts of characters who live in my neighbourhood: drag queens, musicians, hookers, barristers, schizophrenics, filmmakers, stuntmen, and tradies. Youll meet terrier crosses and pedigree poodles; pet goats and ponies; and people around here who walk roosters and ferrets on leashes down Darlinghurst Road.

Its an unusual world, but one that welcomed me into its heart when I arrived here years ago.

Looking for Love

Women living in the city often remark that its hard to meet eligible bachelors these days. Most of my mistresss single girlfriends complain that where we live, the only available men are either gay or married. As a pedigree canine, however, I can tell you its even harder for me: in Kings Cross all my potential studs are either de-sexed or demented.

When I was about three years old I lost my virginity in the beer garden of a pub to my best friend, Yoo-hoo. His owner, Ayesha, was telling my owner, Louis, what a wonderful life shed led as a Les Girls drag queen, while I felt myself growing increasingly aroused. Realising our owners were distracted, I wagged my tail suggestively at Yoo-hoo, who didnt have to be asked twice. So as Ayesha described her feathered headdresses and sequinned costumes, my boy and I held congress for a full five minutes under the table and, as we did so, I was imagining what our babies might look like and which obedience school we should enrol them in for basic training.

It was only after Yoo-hoo pulled out and began licking his considerable member that his blas mistress announced the awful truth: at the age of six months Yoo-hoo had been desexed and hed been merely taking advantage of me.

After that, I gave up on city boys and set my sights on a pedigree from the Blue Mountains, a blue-and-white chihuahua half my age called Elliott. From the moment his two lesbian mistresses introduced us we naturally clicked. Elliott is handsome, playful, and has a goofy sense of humour. But, as I soon learned, the boy lacked experience. First, he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to mount my face. After that, when he found the right end, he preferred to try and do it missionary style. But Ill tell you much more about that later.

Sure, I know what youre thinking: if I were patient enough I could have moulded and trained him into the perfect partner at our next attempt. The only problem was, after six months the lesbians split up with one of them running off with the man up the road, taking my stud dog with her.

Hitler, the Funeral, and the Grab for Cash

If Ive learned anything in life, its that you have to welcome love anywhere youre lucky enough to find it.

Oh, sure, during my first days on earth, I had superficial dreams of being owned by a multi-millionaire, whod indulge me with doggy daycare, weekly salon grooming, a four-poster bed and a diamond collar. Like a lot of immature dogs, I equated love with being pampered, rather than being cherished, an easy mistake to make when youre still wet behind the ears.

I was born the runt of the litter. After my mother gave birth to my four brothers, I popped out last, like an afterthought, smaller than a mouse. My eyes were sealed shut and my legs were so stubbed I couldnt walk. As my brothers squirmed forward and began to suck my mothers nipples, I was pushed aside and left to fend for myself, which I guess is why I began having revenge fantasies about being adopted by a millionaire; it was merely a symptom of sibling rivalry.

From the day of our birth I knew my mother preferred my brothers to me: she licked them clean, fed them on demand, and trained them to poo outside of her den, which was an outdoor laundry covered in newspaper. Now, if Dr Freud were to analyse me hed probably say that this is where all my problems with other dogs began, with my mothers initial rejection and her favouring of the boys. (Its true: I generally dislike other canines as much as my fellow canines hate cats: dogs usually bark, they piss everywhere, and when youre not looking, theyll eat all your food.)

The first human I fell in love with was my breeders wife, Irene. She was in her mid-fifties, with a face so tense she always looked as if she were standing in a cold wind. She and her husband had had a tough life, raising a family in a housing estate on the western outskirts of Sydney, a suburb of broken public telephones, gang graffiti and treeless cul-de-sacs. It was Irene who first noticed that my mother was neglecting me, how shed attend to my brothers every need while leaving me to starve.

Irene found a fur-lined glove and slipped me inside it. Shed stick the glove down the front of her shirt, tucking the tips of the fingers into her bra, and carry me around like that all day to the bus stop, to the shops, to visit her grandkids. As the days passed my eyes began to open wider and I noticed a scar on Irenes chest, where surgeons had cut to fix up her heart. Every three hours, on the dot, Irene would warm up milk and feed me with an eye-dropper.

Her husband, Roger, thought she was spoiling me and that we were growing too attached to one another. Roger was nearly sixty and dyed his hair black. He walked around the house all day in a Chinese silk kimono and sported a toothbrush moustache, like Hitler.

Somebodys about to buy her, Roger warned. Dont get too close to the runt.

The thought of separating from Irene sent me into a panic and I burrowed back into my glove. By this time, at the age of six weeks, Id realised that I didnt need rich owners in order to be happy. Why, Irene didnt even have a job and shed managed to make me happier than my own mother ever could. But Irenes was the only love Id ever known and I was scared of being abandoned again. Maybe Id end up with owners whod leave me alone all day or forget to feed me. Maybe Id end up at the dog pound, on death row, with no one to take me for one long, last walk.

The good thing about being the runt of the litter is that you dont get kicked out of home as quickly as the others. One by one, I saw my brothers being collected by strangers money exchanging hands and then disappearing into a handbag and out the door forever. My mother didnt mind seeing her sons go away by this time her tits were raw and sagging from all the feeding and she now spent most her time lying on the vinyl couch, licking her vagina.

Ill never forget the afternoon I first met one of my new owners. It was in the middle of a sweltering December heatwave: forty-three degrees in the shade. Obviously, Irenes fur-lined glove was too hot and so I walked into the kitchen and lay on the cool lino beside my mothers water bowl.

Irene and Roger were very sad that day. Their teenage granddaughter, Frannie, had died in a car accident only three days before and they were trying to organise her funeral.

The funeral director arrived first, a woman in a white suit, carrying a briefcase. She refused to pat me and, as I sniffed around her ankles, I noticed she smelled like disinfectant.

After the director introduced herself, she pulled out a tape measure and began to measure the length of the coffee table, explaining that the granddaughters casket would be about the tables length and would they like extras on the coffin, a silver crucifix perhaps, or a pair of brass angels?