Jingles

Jingles was a toy cup poodle that my sister got for Christmas in 77. His color was “apricot” which is poodle for tan. We named him Jingles for the season, and reinforced the idea with a little collar with bells on it. He was so tiny he could fit in your, or my, hand. We loved him.
I have noticed that dysfunctional families sometimes lavish all the love that they are unable to show to each other on pets. At least we did. Jingles was probably the best treated person in the house. That’s not to say we didn’t love each other. It was just too hard to give all that unconditional stuff to the humans. Too risky. So Jingles became quite a little tyrant. He would growl and attack my mother in the mornings when she would wake us up for school. I guess he got the memo. My mom was definitely the target of choice. I’m surprised she didn’t just pick up his miniature ass and punt him. But she sort of knew her role, too.
I remember Jingles humping a lot of legs. No one was really safe. If you sat down on the couch and left a foot on the floor (which most adult men and women do), it was an apparent turn on. Pretty embarrassing. We would just gather up our little sibling, kindly unhook him from the victim’s ankle, and take him to the other room. Where he could hump stuffed animals.
Jingles became a little meaner when my older sister was trimming his coat and accidentally cut a nickel sized portion of his skin off. This ruined it for the professional groomers. He had to be sedated in order to be “clipped”. I can’t blame him for this one. Actually, I can’t blame him for any of it. We created that little monster. He got killed one night by rebelling and running out the front door. He used to do that to our dismay, but that night, he went out into the street and met a truck. We were so sad.
I think about Jingles and wonder if I still have the capacity to create monsters with my love. I’m not sure. I am certainly my mother’s child. Hmmm.