Life as a Couch

  • As time has passed, my dear boy has started becoming a man. This has led to a number of life changes, deep realizations and side splitting laughter. I hope that I can relate with you here a small fraction of the joys of having a dog. Just two dudes trying to make it in this world.


  • Coach spends a lot of time on the Couch. Great Danes are notorious couch potatoes and he is no exception. For this reason, and the obvious phonetic one, I often refer to him as Couch, thus the title of this new blog. I want to start off by thanking everybody for the kind words regarding the previous blog “what has coach eaten this week.” Not only was I taken aback with the response, but I was overwhelmed at the amount of people reading about me and my dog. At the request of many of you, I will continue on…..


  •  One of the things I have been coming to terms with is that Coach isn’t the best athlete. Oddly similar to a dad wanting his son to play football, but the son is more interested in lasers and wizards.

    This has been apparent for a while, but just recently have I truly begun to grasp the scope of it.

    The thing that really cemented it was when I was at the dog park the other day. All the ‘athlete’ dogs were running after balls and Frisbees, jumping up with such grace, such élan, catching balls at the precise moment the ball or Frisbee were at their graspable descent. Perfect geometry, perfect symmetry, these dogs knew science. They would tear after a ball and in mid bounce quickly grab it, then run back to their owners. These dogs could play infield for the LA Dodgers.

    Coach can not play for the Dodgers.

    Coach has what in the human world would be considered `bad hand-eye coordination’. In fact I think he might be legally blind in one eye. For instance if I bounce a ball straght down, Coach will watch it, get excited, but then jump at the completely wrong time. The ball will be going upward and Coach will jump after it, which is just a whole lot of dog in mid air, moving at the same trajectory as the ball. Often times the ball will bounce off of his head, and he will try and chase it, fumbling to gain possession of it. This happens all the time, at every angle imaginable.

    So as you can imagine, Coach can constantly be seen jumping and lunging at wrong times after balls that are honesly well out of catching distance. It is quite a comedic site. And its not as if the ball is just out of reach…. the ball will be 6 feet away.

    I can feel all the other owners laugh at us, with there tracksuits, brand new Nikes and coordinated dogs.




  • Coach’s best friend is Bucket, my cat. They have a relationship that can best be explained by these pictures. They sleep together, play together, walk together….Coach will chew on Bucket from time to time and Bucket LOVES IT!!!!

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  • This next story I am gonna relate is one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed first hand. I hope to recount it here as best as I can and relate a small fraction of the humor

    • It was a Sunday Morning a few weeks back, The time was 8am, I woke up early and decided to start reading my book. Coach was asleep next to me, taking up his usual ¾ of the bed. He awoke for a second, glanced at me opening my book, and promptly went right back to sleep. As I lie reading, Coach started to go into a deep sleep and started dreaming, letting out little yelps and moving his paws. He was on his side, legs outstretched toward me, head and back towards the outside of the bed. Soon thereafter he started to walk in his sleep. It is an endearing thing to watch, your dog dreaming, sleep talking and walking, and I just kinda watched and smiled. One of the many small joys of having a dog.

    The sleep-walking soon turned into sleep-running, the little yelps turned more into soft barks, and he really started to move. As he started moving more, he began pushing himself towards the edge of the bed. Now at this point, I didn’t see it coming, I was just smiling and watching my dog run after something in his sleep. But slowly and surely, Coach managed to move himself right up to the edge of the bed, and even as it unfolded right in front of me, I couldn’t believe my eyes….

    The first thing to go was his head. This was followed shortly by his front shoulders, which geometrically pushed his long legs upwards into the air. Coach had begun to fall headfirst off the bed. Now this all happened in a wonderfully slow motion type manner. It wasn’t one quick event, it was more like a slow slide, one part of his body pulling the next over, like a huge bag of patotoes that spills over the edge. Once his head had hit the floor, his front legs angling up at obtuse angles, it brought his whole back half of his body down off the bed, launching his back legs up at weird angles. The sound of it was amazing, not just one thud on impact but rather a distinct sound for each body part that hit the wood floor. His head was a higher pitched sharper sound than his body, a dull series of heavy thuds. Coach had fallen headfirst off of the bed, right in front of me, and now all I saw was a hilarious view of 4 long legs sticking up, flailing in the air.

    Coach ‘woke up’ sometime during the fall and, understandably, was very discombobulated. It took him a second to figure out what the hell had happened…which way was up? how to get his legs where they needed to go? etc. He proceeded to flail around, bump his head against the side table, knocking over the lamp, adding to the confusion, but he managed to get his legs under him, sit up, and with sleepy eyes he looked back at me with absolute bewilderment.

    One important note to bring up here is that I watched this whole spectacle with wide eyed, jaw dropping amazement. From inception to completion, I was paralyzed with awe I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. Once the event ran its course, and Coach looked back at me in bewilderment, I started laughing with such force that I broke a blood vessel in my eye. I continued to laugh for the next 3 days. Spontaneously, without warning or control. I’d be in line at the grocery store, and start laughing hysterically. I still get teary eyed when I think of it today.

    And as I lay there laughing, tears streaming down my face, drool slipping out of my mouth, my book a distant memory thrown off to the side, I looked back at my dog. Coach calmly stood up, took a second to steady himself, climbed back up on the bed, curled up up next to me and went right back to sleep. I put an arm around him, mucus spilling out of my nose, hysterical laughter still spilling out at high decibles, I gave him a hug and he licked my face. I love that dog.

  • Once in a while Couch will eat some grass and then throw up….When he starts heaving, I kind of expect something from a scene from the movie Jaws, where he throws up a license plate, a shoe, a small dog….he hasn’t yet, but I keep hoping.


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  • I’ve watched as Oakland gang members have crossed the street as we approach. Coach is pretty intimidating. Little do they know that coach is the most gentile dude ever. Here is Lilly and Dre’s daughter Phoenix who will play and rough house with Coach all day. She call’s him “Choachy.”

  • I don’t know what has gotten into the boy lately, but he has been belching all the time. It sounds like a 8yr old boy burping and is my new favorite thing. He does it after he eats and i find myself following him around after he’s finished his meal, just waiting to hear it. The best thing about it is that he is so nonchalant about it. He’ll just be watching TV, and then “Brrrrrrrrrrrrmmmpppp.” He’ll then look at me. I don’t know if its for approval, or he’s saying excuse me, or maybe he’s just confused, i dont know.

  • Coach learned a long time ago that he can eat his way through a leash and free himself. At present count he has destroyed 47 leashes, big ones….ropes that you use to tie a boat up. I was in line at the post office and all of a sudden coach was just standing next to me, with half a leash tied to his neck. He has walked into Trader Joe’s, Peets Coffee, Target….you name it. I think its hilarious and endearing, but the workers at these places don’t share my sentiment.

    This skill was displayed in epic grandness last week when he chewed through another dog’s leash. My friend Sarah was watching coach for the week, and she has a tiny little dog that looks like a miniature coach. When Sarah went into a grocery store and tied both the dogs up, coach chewed through the other dogs leash, almost as if saying “Hey, check this out! Now you can go anywhere.” When Sarah came back out, her little dog was standing in the sidewalk, scared, and coach was sitting there proud as hell.

    • Dog parks

    A high percentage of dog owners found in dog parks are fucking lame. That’s just a fact. I am in dog parks everyday, all over California and I can tell you confidently that its rare to run across a level headed, rational dog owner. Make no mistake, I love my dog like a son, but I also realize that he’s A DOG! He smells everything, he eats week old dead mice, he’ll get in a fight once in a while, he’ll stick his nose in your vagina….he’s a fucking DOG!

    I find myself becoming more and more reserved at dog parks. The reasons for this are many, but here’s a funny example….

    The other day I was at a dog park in Berkeley and Coach started running and playing with this very pretty, pure bred border collie (think Lassie). The owner was a very uptight immaculately dressed woman who immedietly started scolding my dog for ‘playing` with her dog. I stood and quietly watched as the two dogs happily played together, pouncing on each other and having a great time. The woman began to get agitated that my ‘pound dog’ was touching her `pure bred baby’. She started to run and yell at Coach, actually swatting at him saying “shoo! get out of here.” I am of course thinking : “It’s a DOG PARK lady, they’re playing wonderfully….get a grip!”

    At this point, my disdain becoming palpable, I stood and watched quietly as the dogs continued to play together, running along side each other. The next event happened exactly like this……

    The woman got close enough to Coach that she slapped him across the face. Like a father seeing his son get hit, I saw red and my jaw hit the ground. I began storming towards the situation but before I got near, Coach took the situation into his own hands. Almost as if he knew what I was thinking, and with an understanding of the situation as a whole, proceeded to mount the border collie from the front, and hump her face. I repeat, he mounted the border collie from the front and proceeded to HUMP HER FACE!

    After a second of slack jawed amazement, I ran over. And with laughter spilling out of the side of my mouth told Coach to “Stop it”, and he did. The woman scolded me and Coach, then aggressively grabbed her dog by the collar and stormed off, cursing us as she walked away, the Border Collie glancing back longingly at Coach…..shortly afterwards
    two other dog owners came up and said how funny that was and how that woman was a fucking facist. Coach proceeded to walk up and smell their vaginas.