Dog's Diary - Living with a Human During Covid

By Nat Segaloff

The bond between man and dog has been celebrated in poetry, song, and legend ever since the two species discovered each other around a campfire. Louie and Nat (Louie's the dog) came together just before the Covid-19 pandemic shut people off and turned life topsy-turvy. Nat had never had a dog before and, as you'll learn from Louie's funny, touching, revelatory diary, Louie had never had a Nat before.

 

This is a day-by-day adventure in bonding for anybody who ever had a dog, is thinking about getting a dog, knows a dog owner, or knows someone who needs a dog. It has a happy ending.

 

Louie is a male Italian greyhound whelped in 2012. Nat Segaloff was whelped somewhat earlier and is the author of some thirty books and is Louie's third owner. The pair dwell in Los Angeles.

 

All royalties from Dog's Diary go to the Perfect Paws Pet Ministry at All Saints Episcopal Church of the North Shore in Danvers, Massachusetts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Jun 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215228807

Nat Segaloff

Nat Segaloff has been a movie publicist and film critic, college instructor, broadcaster, speechwriter, and documentary film producer. Among his more than thirty books are biographies of William Friedkin, Arthur Penn, Harlan Ellison, John Milius, and Paul Mazursky, as well as comprehensive works on The Exorcist, Scarface, and Rambo. He lives in Los Angeles.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

With the blossoming of Covid-19 in the United States in the spring of 2020, the American people were urged to sequester in their homes to avoid spreading infection in the growing pandemic. The nightmare that ensued had profound effects on a nation already torn by regional, economic, political, religious, educational, cultural, and racial distinctions.

Suddenly there was a heightened awareness of people whose jobs were considered essential even while they themselves were not.

People began to distrust the media, science, politics, and each other. Families became divided. Schools and businesses collapsed. The future of Mankind was in the balance.

Fortunately, that’s not what this book is about. Mostly.

It’s about my best friend and how someone who had been alone learned to love someone who felt alone.

-- Louie

Guard duty, March 2020

Photo by Ivanna Lahmani

My name is Louie. I am a fully grown Italian greyhound. People think I am a whippet, but I am not. People also think I am still a puppy. I am not. I am fully grown, eleven-year-old dog. You got a problem with that?

For my first seven years I lived with a nice young couple in the city of Los Angeles. My major activities there were eating, sleeping, and barking at anyone who went up or down the stairs outside our apartment. When the nice couple had a baby, they decided that one of us had to go and, for some reason, they chose to keep the baby. The wife gave me to her brother who lives in North Hollywood. The brother has a lovely wife and two somewhat older sons. They were a busy family and sometimes I got the feeling that I was just marking time, so mostly I stayed alone in my cage zoning out. Their uncle, who lived in a converted garage called a granny flat, used to come over and play with me and sometimes change my food and water. When the family saw how much he wanted a dog, they gave me to him. That was three years ago as this is being written.

My Master (we’ll go into the use of that word) started off by calling me a rescue dog until he realized that it sounded like I had been mistreated, which I really hadn’t been. It scored him sympathy from people who asked where he got me. Now he calls me a used dog which is a little insulting, but it’s funnier and not entirely untrue.

I am his first dog. He didn’t know how to treat a dog, so he treated me like a person. I can live with that. So can he.

My journal begins on March 19, 2020 when the City of Los Angeles was ordered locked down to retard the spread of Covid. It was before a vaccine was available, or even invented, and people were dying left and right. Just setting paw outside of the house was considered risky. That’s when I started keeping a journal.

SPOILER ALERT: This book has a happy ending. It’s not one of those laments for a departed pet or master. It also has a lot of bathroom comments. I’m a dog; what else have I got going on?

MARCH 2020

March 19: My master and I were just getting used to each other when something called Covid struck. Nobody knows what to do so everybody is buying toilet paper. Apparently this is how humans react to emergencies, that and buy cases of bottled water. Today California issued its official stay-at-home order for the novel Coronavirus. There’s nothing novel about it. I am hearing so much about it that, by now, it should be called the mundane coronavirus. Medical experts say that everybody has to stay indoors, not mix with one another, and—oh, look a squirrel—maintain social distance. That may be okay for humans, but I have to get out of the house once in a while, say two or three times a day. Maybe a cat can get off pooping in a box, but dogs need fresh air and freedom. I must raise this issue on the next Twilight Bark.

20: He let me out of the house. Can you imagine that? He didn’t put me on a leash and walk me, he just opened the door and said, Okay, Louie, do your business and showed me the back yard. The nerve! I’ll do it this time because I have to, but as soon as I finish I’m going to run back into the house and plop my butt on the sofa. Let him deal with it.

21: It worked. He took me out on a leash like he’s supposed to, picked up my poop in a plastic bag, and left it in the outside trash can. You see, you gotta come down on your human as soon as they make a mistake or else they never learn.

22: Day four and I’m getting tired of National Public Radio. Why can’t he find another station?

23: He finally broke down and got Netflix.

24: Christ, no, he’s binging on Friends.

25: He’s starting to wear a mask outside, but I still recognize him. He bought a package of them at the 99-Cent store and came home grousing about how dare the 99-cent store charge three dollars. At least he got to leave the house while I stayed here listing to National Public Radio.

26: There has got to be more to life than being walked on the same block. Maybe if I can hold it in he’ll try another block or two and I’ll get to check out that hot poodle I smelled.

27: I don’t think he wants to go the extra block, but I’ve got to stick to my guns. Not only is there the question of the poodle, but he needs exercise.

28: I must say I’m finding an upside to this sequestering. When we sit together on the sofa he scratches my back and rubs my belly while I pretend to like Friends.

29: Thank god he finished Friends. Oh no, he’s started Cheers.

30: He ran out of that awful dry dog food and scrounged around until he made me a hamburger. Hey, I could live with this.

31: Good news. He gave up on Cheers because he didn’t like it as much as he remembered and switched to The West Wing. Finally something I can relate to. When he forgot to go out and buy more dog food, we split a baked chicken. Not bad. There’s potential here.

APRIL 2020

April 1: April Fool’s Day. He hates practical jokes. There goes the present I left him in the bathroom. He knew it wasn’t his, but he still hasn’t figured out how I managed to lift the toilet seat.

2: Dry dog food again. Merde. He ordered a big bag of it from Amazon and I didn’t know to stop him. Where’s the chicken? I shall have my revenge. I may starve for a day, but I’ll have my revenge!

3: I screwed up. The man doth tempt me with a treat and I did eat. For my