Inspiration for Pocket Dog happened January 11, 1990. It was English 665 and the assignment was: Write a short sketch about a pet.

TEX

I bet you are wondering why a hip, be-bop guy like myself would own a dog. Everybody knows I’ve got unique tastes. Take music, for instance. All I ever listen to are ninth century Anglo-Saxon fertility chants. It took awhile, but now I know them all by heart. Sing them constantly. So wouldn’t you expect someone like me, someone with that je-ne-sais-quoi kind of uniqueness, to be more the llama, or potbellied pig type? Anything but a dog.

Actually, the notion struck me during service at the Unitarian church, during the Celebration of North American Deciduous Forests festival. The entire congregation was standing in a large, harmonious circle around an ancient virgin maple tree. We were all holding hands, trying to get peace in our hearts, when a lesser-known ninth century Anglo-Saxon fertility chant flashed through my mind. I suddenly realized that the Anglo-Saxon word for peace was a cross between canus, the latin word for dog, and mugdopka, which is an obsolete Turkish word for heart. It was an epiphanous moment for me, in a lingui-spiritual sort of way. I’ve learned from the Unitarians never to ignore these opportunities for personal growth, and so I decided right then that the route to intemal peace lay in dog ownership.

The experts will tell you never to buy a dog from a pet store. They’ll tell you that that bouncy little dog in the window with its wiggly tail and adorable floppy ears may look all fluffy and cute, and it may even act loving and friendly and warm, but chances are its insides are full of malformed chromosomes. Without knowing it, you could bring home a monster.

So I got my dog from a famous mail-order dog supplier. Highly respected. Reliable. Been in business 147 years. Even so, I had a moment of doubt when I opened the box. I guess all the glossy color pictures in the catalog had left me unprepared. There he was, no larger than my thumb, a tiny brown and white spotted clump of hair perched on a half-eaten dog biscuit. The invoice said his name was Tex.

At first, I thought that the company had made a mistake and had sent me a hamster with a dog-like face. But hey … that was crazy talk. A hamster named Tex? I could see my doubts were coming from the absence of peace in my heart. Obviously, a mail-order dog is going to start off small. Give him a chance, I thought. He’ll grow.

But in two months Tex was still hardly larger than a mouse. He had been eating fine — the dog biscuit was nearly gone — and he was learning to sit up and beg and do other dogly tricks, so I knew he wasn’t sick. Still, to be on the safe side, I decided to call the mail-order company before the 90 day warranty expired. The lady who answered the twenty-four hour 800 number seemed genuinely concerned.

“We take great pride in accurately sizing our dogs,” she said, pleasantly, though I could detect a touch of defensiveness. “Its a specialty of ours. In 147 years we’ve never mis-sized a dog. How big a dog did you order?”

I distinctly remembered checking the L on the size chart. I like large dogs, but I had decided my apartment was too small for an XL. I explained this to her.

“Let me check your order, sir. It’ll take just a minute.” She put me on holdand I heard ninth century fertility chants being played in the background. I had good feelings about this company.

She returned shortly. “I believe I’ve found the problem,” she said. “You thought you checked L but you actually checked XS. You see, we’ve just changed type fonts in our catalog. Now we use a Zapf Chancery Medium Italic Dingbat font exclusively and, unfortunately, some customers confuse this with the New Century Gothic Schoolbook Palatino font. The L and the XS look exactly alike.”

She was right, of course. I’ve frequently made that mistake even though font-mastery is a hobby of mine. However, she was honorable and offered to let me exchange my dog. Wow! If more businesses were run that way we wouldn’t have to worry so much about the Japanese.

Did I really want to exchange my dog? I searched my soul. Gosh darn it, I’d really gotten attached to the little rascal. Who could resist those mournful eyes? Or that cute little whimper? Or the way he rolls over to get his tummy patted? Anyway, where is it written that a guy has to have an Lor an XL dog? As a Unitarian, I was beyond that macho stuff. No sir, there’s no way I’d send old Tex back, and I told her so.

“I’m so relieved,” she said, obviously touched by the emotion in my voice. “However, you’ve got another thirty days if you decide to change your mind. And you can get an extra two years if you purchase an extended service contract. Let me explain how —

” I cut her off. Those things are for suckers, and besides, I’d made up my mind. Tex was here to stay.

So that’s my story. Tex may not be the smartest dog in the world, but he tries hard. He can sit, and stay, and roll over and play dead. He’ll fetch my slippers, although it takes him awhile, and he growls and barks if strangers come to the door. Anyway, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Unitarians, it’s that brains aren’t all that important …