Hellhounds

They look cute, right?

They're really not.

My roommate's got these two dogs -- Rocco and Snoop -- that are "cruelly" kept in a kennel 23.5 hours a day. It's somewhat uncomfortable whenever friends visit because everyone wants to play with the dogs, but I never let them out of the kennel.

The conversations are always the same; we'll be watching football in the other room, and my friend won't be able to ignore the rattling sounds of the dogs banging against the kennel door anymore and blurt out, "Dude, do you just leave your dog in there like that all day? Why not just let it out?"

And I'll say, "They're not my dogs."

And my friend will say, "Christ... dogs?! There's two in there? That kennel's barely six cubic feet!"

I've never asked my roommate why he keeps them in there all the time because I'm a courteous roommate, and because it's really none of my business. I figured there was a good reason for it.

Well, today I finally found out. My roommate went out of town for the night, leaving me to dogsit for him. The job was simple: keep them in the kennel at all times, but let them out once during the evening so they can stretch their legs.

Thinking I could be Cool Uncle Pete who spoils the kids whenever he visits, I decided to let the dogs out of the kennel right when I got home from work, for a prolonged period of time. It wasn't so bad at first. As I expected, the dogs were really hyperactive. They were jumping and running around the living room with the same harmless energy as rambunctious little children. It was actually kind of fun. I blasted Cyprus Hill from my computer speakers and jumped around with the dogs.

After about a half hour of this mayhem, however, their hyperactivity began to get on my nerves. My hope was that by letting them run around for a while, the dogs would slow down in exhaustion. Boy was I wrong. Those little motherfuckers kept pulling out the plug to the living room lamp, chewing on sofa pillows, gnawing on the TV remote control and then tossing it on the floor as the batteries spilled everywhere, and on, and on, and on. They just wouldn't stop.

It was maddening. Even when I tried to earn their respect by crawling on the floor with them on all fours and panting really hard, the dogs responded by snapping at my face, literally inches away from leaving me earless.

So I decided to take them outside for a walk, thinking that just like me, they get antsy whenever they have to go pee. But it only got worse from there. Sure, they peed -- but most of it was all over the apartment lobby.

And when we finally made it outside? They fucking tried to attack everything in sight. Other dogs. A little girl. A Polish-American family. A transexual.

I looked like such an asshole to other people when they saw that I kept winding their leashes up around my wrists until I was basically holding them each by the collar as we walked along the sidewalk.

And then, on the way home, as if I hadn't had enough already, the dogs decided to fight. Running around and around me, wrapping me up like a mummy with their leashes, they kept chasing after each other. Totally drained, my grip on their leashes went limp as I watched them roll around on the ground together, biting each other's necks and growling.

There were several onlookers, and they all covered their mouths in shock.

"Aren't you going to break that up?" someone asked me as the dogs continued to chase each other in circles.

I crossed my arms. "Nope. I hope they kill each other. I hope they die."