The Fruitcake

‘4 personalities. That's enough. You don’t need another one. You basically have 4. He's a fruitcake.' Jack was dead right.  I couldn't handle another dog. I was struggling enough with this one. In hindsight, I probably wouldn't have gone out and purchased that dog. I kind of just acquired him and somehow incorporated him into everyone's life without giving them a choice on the matter. Rocket spent hours digging up the backyard, barking at me when I wasn't throwing his stick, rolling in puddles of mud whenever available and trying to kill Sam, our ex crim neighbour who lived in the halfway house next door.  On odd but frequent occasions, I found Sam peeking in my window, inviting me to eat pasta off his bench or asking to use our shower because his skin was itchy and our water was filtered. Sam liked meth. Sometimes I thought Rocket liked meth too. He was mad. 

Rocket came from my time in Western Australia. My party friend lived up the road and goes by the name of Isac. He kept him in a courtyard day in, day out. I met Isacs one day only by chance, because my friend was fucking his housemate. Rocket liked me straight away. Which wasn't always the case with humans. I was yet to learn he had an attitude problem and was very picky about who he spent his time with so I consider myself lucky that I left that day with both my hands attached to my wrists. I asked Isac if I could take him running one day. I went running most nights around Kings Park in Perth, and I thought a cattle dog might make a good addition.

Turned our Rocket was an outstanding runner, so my running became way more interesting and I would go out for hours at the time. One day, Isac came over and asked if I could look after Rocket for a few weeks while he opened ‘Marketa’, his new restaurant project. It was taking up a significant amount of his time and he didn't have enough of it to look after a dog. ‘Rocket is 7 years old, he's real placid and loves being around people’. That was enough false information to convince me. 'Sure i’ll mind him.' My housemates didn't mind either. In fact Tom loved Rocket and let him sleep in his bed when his girlfriend was on night shift. Weeks went by and Isac never really wanted to collect him. Turns out he didn't have enough time to look after a dog and needed to get rid of him. 

I didn't know if I wanted to keep him. I was struggling to look after myself let alone a dog. I was relocating back to Melbourne, trying to find a job and hadn't slept properly since January.  But somehow, as it sometimes does, life worked out. A week before my 30th birthday, Rocket was delivered to Noone street, Clifton Hill by my dear friends and delicious housemates all the way from Western Australia. He stunk like shit, was manic as ever and ready to take on Melbourne in his black and white fur coat.

It’s been 7 months. I have discovered since then, the dog is in fact 3.5 years old, not 7. He nips at strangers if they try and touch him. He may have some sort of personality disorder. You really have to earn his love and I think his intuition might be able to differentiate between the bad guys. He especially dislikes children but to compensate, loves sticks. He’s pretty highly strung, a bit anxious at times and pretty good at swimming upstream.  He likes driving, knows how to sit but chooses not to, eats grass, rubs his head in dirt and shits on the roof. He’s my guy. He might not listen to a thing I say, but he loves me. I can tell.