Introducing Stella

Be still my beating heart… ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Stella, a 3 year old brown female who lives near the Siam Square area of Bangkok. I’ve had a serious crush on Stella for a long time. Looking at her, I’m sure you can see why. Just look at the way she gazes at the camera with those gorgeous chestnut eyes and that pouting, sultry expression on her face; the way her left ear is sticking up in a very suggestive, “come hither” sort of way; and the way the sunlight reflects magnificently from her radiant (and, for a Bangkok street dog, surprisingly clean) fur. A more captivating picture of feminine canine beauty may exist somewhere in the cosmos, but to me, Stella is my own personal vision of perfection.

Unfortunately, things between Stella and I have never quite worked out. Not that we haven’t tried – we’ve gone on dozens of dates, and spent lots of time together, talking about our likes, dislikes, our fears, and our hopes for the future. We’ve even taken several romantic weekend trips to the Bangkok city dump in the southeastern part of the city, which offers a multitude of canine recreational activities – although most of them have to do with rummaging through freshly dumped garbage searching for edible scraps. By the way, there truly is no better tonic for a relationship than spending an evening snuffling through a pile of pungent city refuse together (note: this only works for dogs, not humans).

Yes, we’ve had a lot of great times together, Stella and I, but irreconcilable differences with regard to the way we look at life and the future have always kept from getting married. Here’s the problem: I want to settle down and have a family, but Stella… she has always had this crazy dream about being a television stunt dog. So she’s always resisted my marriage proposals. When I try to explain to her how hard it is to get a stunt dog gig (particularly if one is a street dog without any acting experience), she always begins to growl and whine. A full fledged snarling attack usually isn’t far behind. Some dreams die hard, I guess.