Wednesday 10 September 2014

#4: "You Had Me A Woof" by Julie Klam

I Guess I'm Not A Dog Person (1/10)


(book chosen by Beau Dashington)

Lesson One: How to push your neurosis and selfish needs onto your dog. Have a dream about a dog and go out and get one. Take a week off of work to help it adjust to it’s new home. Change careers so you can avoid dealing with your separation anxiety and spend all of your time with it. Keep the dogs you were supposed to foster for only a couple of weeks at a time, even though you do not have the space or the time to take care of them all. But don’t forget to whine about all the extra effort involved. Rename dogs you are only caring for a week at a time because you don’t feel the name suits it or feel it doesn't respond to the name. Get a new dog if yours dies even if you are eight months pregnant and your family, friends, and veterinarian says it isn't a good idea. Lesson Two: How to give into your dog’s every whim and never attempt to train it. Give your dog a buffet of sliced deli meats, yogurt, and cheese in place of dog kibble. Order larger servings at restaurants and let it sit at the table ignoring the ‘snide looks’ of passer-byers. If he has a tummy ache treat it with Pepto-Bismol. Be surprised when your beloved pet dies suddenly and at a much younger age than is normal for the breed. Allow your dog to bite other people and dogs. Rationalize that your dog was provoked and it is not their fault. Do not attempt to train your dog but instead speak to it as if they understood the English language as well as a postgraduate literature student. Please note this will only work if you have spend the necessary $500 on a weekend course at a retreat in up state New York about communicating with animals. ‘Obedience classes’ is a term you are unfamiliar with. Let your dogs go to the bathroom indoors and then simply accept it. Lesson Three: How to learn about emotional growth from your dog. I have no clue. It was supposed to be the premise of the book but it never really came up... Lesson Four: How to feed your self-absorbed contemptuous ego. Volunteer with an organization which gives you a very small amount of power, such as inspect the homes of hopeful pet adopters. It is ok if you have no training or certification. Criticize those who, although have a better home set up to accommodate pets, are just not what you feel are the best fit. Allow yourself to be known as the dog expert to your friends and family even if you only know about your own pets and have never actually researched other breeds. Give advice to those looking for a new pet but see that they are not true ‘dog people’ and accept that they will probably get rid of it and drop it off at the pound eventually, or let it get run over by a car. But it will be negligence when it happens to their dog, not an accident like yours. Lesson Five: How to write a piece of shit book. Do not have any idea about a central theme. Start chapters with lessons which have nothing to do with story in the chapter. Go off on long anecdotes but never conclude them with how they are relevant to anything you have written. Write up a laundry list of events and descriptions of pets for no reason. Forget about pacing. Tell of how strongly a dog influenced your life (but don’t go into how) then jump to him being dead, you being married, pregnant, and have a new dog. Complain a lot, but not in a funny way, just slightly depressed and defeated. Most importantly make sure to make stupid and illogical choices throughout your life using the most moronic reasoning your vacuous fucking brain could muster up so you can unremittingly irritate your readers.

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