Gone Fishin'

My dog, Fisher, for whom I am but a sidekick with a credit card, was born to be a clown. The American Kennel Club describes his primary breed as such: “The Japanese Spitz are little comedians who want to make you happy and laugh.”

Fisher turns 10 years old this November and probably has no idea that he’s a source of entertainment on four legs. He’s also a source of “ruining my black clothing” but that’s not at all a daily problem for a person who has lived in New York City for most of her adult life.

Many people online are familiar with Fisher’s primary piece of lore (insane sentence): We live near an apartment building that has a laundry vent that airs right onto the sidewalk. In seasons warm and cold, he loves to feel that Downy-smelling air flow through his fur. He dances in front of it and people walk by us and stare in amusement. It’s just such a dog-brain thing to do that I let him do it as often as he’s in the mood for it.

Anyway, I wrote a very earnest essay about Fisher a few months ago, which you can read here.

Important note: Fisher is not sick or dying. He’s just living his carefree life on government (my) dole. Don’t worry, the dog is not dying.

But we’re not here for that type of sincerity. Yesterday, I posted a video to BlueSky of Fisher in front of his laundry vent. It was a whole new audience for his antics, and many people said his clownery brought some brightness during some very dark times. Fisher has no idea we are in dark times. The only darkness he knows is not getting a piece of whatever I eat that has a piece of cheese.

God, I wish I were him. In the interest of fan service and putting something nice on the internet, please enjoy a few of the 15,000 photos I have of Fisher on a phone I purchased three years ago. I hope his joy is as contagious as his loose fur.

There are 4,000 Lambchop toys in my home. Please help. Also, please subscribe to my Substack, which helps me buy Lambchops.

In late 2017, I adopted Fisher from Korean K9 Rescue. It was a day or two after Christmas and had been snowing all week in New York. I was looking for a dog on PetFinder and saw that a dog named “Glory” would be at an adoption event in Sunnyside, Queens. The most in-demand dog that day was a poodle named "Corn” who had behavioral issues but is hypoallergenic.

Quickly, Glory’s name was changed to Fisher in honor of Carrie Fisher. I love Carrie Fisher and she loved dogs. He had just turned two years old at the time and was fresh off a plane from Korea.

A few days later, I got an Instagram message from Fisher’s original owner. I don’t know how she found me and I haven’t been able to find her since. She sent me a few photos of Fisher when he was a puppy, which are so special to me. My understanding is that he spent a year in a shelter in Korea after she moved and was no longer able to keep him. It makes my heart hurt. But it turned out pretty well for me.

Fisher has been with me through a lot of new beginnings. He’s been the only constant in my life for the last seven years and while I deeply appreciate his companionship, I cannot believe how many times I have picked up his poop over that span of time. I genuinely can’t bring myself to open the calculator app. Here he is in an apartment I moved into during that first pandemic summer. I was starting my life over after a breakup and Fisher was there to be constantly underfoot as I assembled a new home for myself.

My friend Alex always refers to this day as “Fisher’s birthday party.” It was my birthday party. MY BIRTHDAY PARTY. Canonically, it was Fisher’s party.

A nice photo of Fisher’s party on my birthday from my friend Matt Hunziker. My friend Becca brought him this bandana as a gift for my birthday.

Sometimes when I wake up way too early, Fisher and I go to the Brooklyn Bridge before the tourists arrive. I think he finds it disorienting to walk down the center of the walkway. He usually tries to stick to the side as if there were a sidewalk on the Brooklyn Bridge. I never thought that I would raise a rule-follower, but they can’t all make you proud.

We were outside of a bakery. Fisher lives for anything that contains a massive amount of butter. Usually he gets the croissant flakes that fall off the pastry.

The year Fisher went as Phoebe Bridgers for Halloween. She hasn’t put out a solo record since. Get your ass back into that studio, lady.

This is the classic photo of Fisher. We were at a Koreak K9 summer party and he just photo-bombed this other dog’s portrait. Why did he do that? Why does my dog have comedic timing?

Fisher believes that the American government’s attempt to eradicate transgender people from our society (which is actually just an attempt to make them incredibly unsafe and vulnerable to even more bigotry and hate crimes than they experience now), is a moral atrocity and that creating a domestic enemy is a classic part of the fascism handbook. That opinion runs in our family.

This photo is really funny because I am reading a copy of Susan Sontag’s “On Photography.” I have read that book cover to cover probably 15 times. Not sure why, when I was clearly posing, I didn’t think to open the book past the first page. I’m pulling a LeBron. I posted this photo on Instagram (obviously, look at my hair) with the caption: “Dog is my copilot.” My friend Kelsey said: “LET HIM DRIVE.”

Another apartment for Fisher. And for me. I pay the rent here. You don’t want to know what the lint trap looks like when I wash those couch blankets every 10 days.

This was a group chat avatar for many months. We usually switch out the Fisher photos every season.

Nothing like the feeling of wet leaves to drag into my home. People always ask me how I keep Fisher so white. The answer is that his fur has a Teflon-like coating that means that most dirt just brushes off him when it dries. He always looks clean but he is secretly disgusting. I’m not supposed to bathe him very often because of that fur coating, but when I do, I scrub the hell out of him with a whitening shampoo. Then I follow it up with the Furminator conditioner.

Life with dog. Thanks for reading. I hope Fisher’s oblivious joy brings some relief from the horrors. He certainly does it for me.