Self Portrait with Dog
Written by Teresita Blanco (The Artsy Sister)
This is another one of my self-portraits. The dog was an American cocker spanial. He was the last dog I owned. He came around the time that my old man died. So, he was there to fill a void created in the family dynamic. My mom was visiting a friend at a farm. While there, she saw the dog raising a fuzz, barking all the time. The owner was complaining about the dog, and how much he hated it. Mother on a whim said that if he did not want it, she would take it. This is how we ended up with the dog. The day she brought it home, we were not expecting it. It was larger than the average dog. Then again, we were small. I was like 6 and my brother was 8. The dog was placed on the yard, and we were climbing on the windows, because we did not want to be near the strange dog. Eventually, we warmed up to it.
We would walk it every day, so that the neighbors would see that we had a big dog. He was there as a deterrent against thieves. We had already been robbed twice. Anyhow, the dog needed a strong chain to walk with. One day, we felt like changing it up a bit, and we tried a belt to walk him. He broke it, and so we worried that he would run away. So, we dragged him back home. I do not know if he would have run away or not. The dog mainly ate rice and beans. He also liked to eat charcoal. We did not feed him charcoal, rather he would get at it. We only noticed whenever he pooped. Aside from what he ate, he would like to dig, but there was no dirt for him. He was in the habit of trying to dig through a tile floor. He did not scratch it much because it was tile. This reminds me, did I ever tell you how much I love tiles? People in this country be all about wooden floors, not me. I am more of a tile person.
In my old house, the floor had a beautiful checkered board tile pattern. It was super easy to clean. My grandma used to clean the house every day. She would throw buckets of water, filled with soap. The house was always sparkly clean. One time when the house flooded, the floor did not get damaged. If that were to happen to a wooden floor house, the floor would have gotten all moldy. As for the grooming of the dog, my mom was the one who handled it. She would cut the dog’s hair, and nails. We used to help her bathe the dog. I never got why people got many dogs in order to have other people take care of them. Almost all the dogs I ever encountered in the US smelled terrible. The owners never bothered to bathe the dogs, ever. They always left it to the groomers to take care of their own pets.
There are exceptions to this norm. One of mother’s friend’s had a Shih Tzu that was always dainty and nice looking. Now that I think about it, I forgot to tell you the name of the dog. We named it Pluto. It had the same name as Mickey’s dog. The story of our dog did not have a happy ending. We left for the US and that was the end of that story. Nobody from Cuba I have asked has told me the truth of what became of that dog. They just scoff and say something random, like that dog’s life did not mattered. Most of people’s attitude towards pets is really annoying. They have them as a status symbol. Well, I suppose there is no point in thinking about it. I find that owning a dog in the US is super annoying with all the rules and regulations. There is less regulations for cats. Well, this is just about it. The painting was drawn with my acrylics from my US art supply set. The paper pad also belongs to that set. The line art was drawn with my royal and langnickel pencil. I then erased the pencil lines with my pentel eraser. I hope you like this self portrait of me, and my dog.
