Show #80 June 2, 2012

Dedicated to Maya... and all dog lovers!
  
Maya- The Weed Bros The Weed Bros 
Every Dog- London Reboot 
Gimme Back My Dog- Slobberbone Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today 
Bird Doggin'- Dogs Legendary Lovers 
Gonna Buy Me A Dog- The Monkees Listen To The Band
Your Dogs- Ben Folds and Nick Hornby Lonely Avenue
She's A Dog- Simply Saucer She's A Dog 45
Dogs Are Everywhere- Pulp Dogs Are Everywhere 
^Shannon- Henry Gross Shannon 7"
Rabies (From The Dogs Of Love)- The 101'ers Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited 
Since You Got A Dog- Chixdiggit! Safeways Here We Come
Do The Dog- The Specials Specials 
Dogs Of War- The Sensational Alex Harvey Band The Best Of
The Dogs- Sloan Parallel Play
Hair of the Dog- The Ramones Animal Boy
Walkin' The Dog- The Neighborhoods The Last Rat
Jealous Dogs- The Pretenders Pretenders II
Walk My Dog- The Boys Punk Rock Rarities
She Wants A Puppy, She'll Have A Puppy- Silver Sun Disappear Here 
Two Headed Dog [Red Temple Prayer]- Roky Erickson and the Aliens The Evil One 
Quiche Lorraine- The B-52's Wild Planet
Get Your Woofing Dog Off Me- Jerks s/t 7"
Doghouse- The Creepshow Sell Your Soul  
>I Wanna Be Your Dog- The Stooges The Stooges
Doghouse- Descendents Everything Sucks 
Dog Eat Dog- Adam and The Ants Dog Eat Dog 
Give A Dog A Bone- Sham 69 You're A Better Man Than I 45
My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found- The Fiery Furnaces Blueberry Boat
Dog`s Life- Eels B-Sides and Rarities
Maya- The Church Forget Yourself 

^Power Pop Peak:  #23 Billboard Hot 100 3/22/80

>Power Pop Prototype:  1969 

We always had dogs when I was growing up in Massachusetts yet once I had a family of my own I held out for years on getting a dog.  For me, it came down to four things:  sh*t, p*ss, puke and hair.  By the time my daughter Nica was out of diapers I was looking forward to my return to a  sh*t and p*ss-free existence and I saw no reason to go back.  As for puke, to this day I have a multi-year no vomit streak going that I am quite proud of and (knock wood) the kid's days of Exorcist-like stomach flu are a thing of the past.  (Now the hair, well living with a woman, you've just got to make peace with that one as I did years ago.)

Anyway, I held firm until the Fall of 2002 when a friend of a friend was looking for a new home for her adult dog and Jaime convinced me to drive down to Fairfax in Marin County with the kids to "just check it out."  Due to a job change and kids in high school sports, this woman's dog, named Naiya, was being left alone all day and kept sneaking out to visit a convalescent hospital down the street.  I was under the impression that we were going to "meet" Naiya and maybe bring her home for a few days to "see how it goes."  Of course as soon as the kids saw her, it was all over.  As I'm putting the dog's bowls, brushes, leashes and bed into the back of our station wagon I started to realize that I was being had.  The funny thing was, I tried to put the dog into the back of the car as well but as soon as I let go of her collar she jumped into the back seat, which Jack and Nica thought was hilarious.  I wasn't sure it was a good idea to pack the dog in with the kids after just meeting them, so I brought Maya around and up into the back again, where she promptly vaulted the seat to be with the kids.  That time I just went with it. 

We had told Jack he could name the dog as his birthday was coming up.  I was a little worried about confusing Naiya with a new name like Luke Skywalker, Shrek or Ace Frehley (my sister Sarah gave me a set of Kiss dolls for Christmas the previous year and Jack loved playing with them).  It was a relief then when he chose Maya and Nica contributed the middle name Leah.  So Naiya became Maya and I'm no dog psychologist but she didn't seem to suffer any identity crises.  We learned that first day in Fairfax that Maya was not like other dogs. She wouldn't fetch, swim, sit up, beg or roll over on command- she only wanted to be with us.

I had started running a year earlier and the woman in Marin assured me that the dog loved jogging.  I don't know if "love" is the right word, but Maya would jog with me, though never in front.  We had one of those extending leashes and Maya chose to trot about ten feet behind me.  Of course to passersby this looked like I was dragging the poor dog up and down the bike path (though if there was ever a squirrel on the path you better believe Maya got out front fast.)  I'd respond to their nasty looks with an out of breath "she's got four legs, I've only got two" but I could tell they still thought I was a monster.  Maya was proud like that- like  how when kids would try to get her to fetch; they'd toss the ball, it would bounce of her chest and she'd look straight at them with a look that said "As If!"   It was the same way when we caught her trying to steal something out of the trash or eat food off the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.  I'd say "Maya you're better than that" and her shoulders would slump while she slunk away, trying to avoid looking me in the eye.

The only time Maya ever got aggressive was when there was a dog bone involved.  That first Christmas we got her a bone and three year old Nica got nipped trying to take it away.  I'll never forget the look of shame on Maya's face afterward.  The next time someone brought her a bone she calmly picked it up, took it out in the back yard and buried it.  Maya knew her limits -bones were her canine crack- you could almost see her saying, "thanks for the bone, but I just can't handle this stuff so I'm going to get it out of here right now."

Maya has been a fixture in our life for ten years and she has never asked more than to be with us.  In the last few years we started to let her lay out under a tree in our front yard.  She'd stay there for hours just watching what was going on in the neighborhood.  Jaime called her "Ferdinand The Bull" because she liked to "sit just quietly and smell the flowers."

We'd noticed Maya getting older of course but she really started to decline in the last month or so.  Our vet Rhonda was great, she laid out our options and when things hadn't gotten any better after a week of treatment, we took Maya back in one last time.  I'll never forget how strong Nica was in those last few minutes of her beloved dog's life, even catching Maya's last breath.  I was in awe of my daughter at that moment.


Sure there were a few heinous hours blotting diarrhea out of white berber carpet, and one year that same carpet looked like a crazed game of Twister with only yellow spaces, but that's nothing compared with all the joy Maya gave us over the years.  She was truly the B.D.E.- the Best Dog Ever.

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Hour 1
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