I like dogs. What kind of freak doesn’t like dogs? No freak, that’s who! Although I grew up with dogs, I haven’t owned my own dog in my adult life, because my tiny home won’t comfortably accommodate a dog larger than a Chihuahua, and I am still secretly convinced that Chihuahuas are a type of rodent rather than a dog.
But I do like dogs a whole lot, and spend a lot of time harassing them, borrowing them, and generally filling them with treats and winding them up because they’re not mine and I can give them back when they start to be a pain in the arse. Surprisingly, most of my mates are perfectly ok with this arrangement.
So it occurred to me that while I have written about Goth pets a few times before, and included dogs in some of my previous blog posts, I have yet to dedicate a whole entry to Goth dogs and pictures and links relating to them, and it seemed about time!
Stripy Tights and Dark Delights got there first in 2011, but totally new to me is this awesome cartoon from Everything is Better with Goths:
Which, I feel, makes for a good opener.
Moving on to some Goth/dog tunes (Yep, that’s a thing, an actual thing), I had never heard of Cholo Goth of San Diego, but I just found this video and tune on the YouTube:
Named Prayers From Dog to God, which not only fits in neatly with the theme of this blog, but is amazing, haunting and oh so very retro-goth styled, straightaway putting me in mind of 80’s-era Cure. LISTEN TO IT NOW.
I know, right? Why all the words, when what you came here for was the sodding pictures? Ok, behold, some of my favourite canines, and internet Goth Dog offerings.
My most favourite dog ever
This is Odin Fincher, and he is my most favourite dog ever, as well as having a totally badass name.
Odin is three, and when he was two, he nearly died after having an allergic reaction to an innocuous antibiotic designed to treat a sore paw. I’m not going to tell you how much it cost his owners to keep him alive, but I will say that it involved nearly a month in critical care at the Royal Veterinary College’s top level referral centre, and something stupid like over ten blood transfusions.
This dog was supposed to die. Everyone, including the top level consultants, thought he was going to die. Even on the day he was supposed to go home, he suddenly had to be wheeled back in to have his spleen removed, this dog’s body was trying so hard to kill him. THIS DOG FACED DOWN DEATH, and said “NOT TODAY,” for pretty much 30 days straight.
Odin Fincher is HARDCORE. Also, very smart-He had 40 tricks down by the time he was six months old, as demonstrated on his own YouTube channel!
Riko Dogge
This is Riko Dogge, and Riko Dogge used to be a veritable shitbag to everyone he met, as you can see here from his penchant for partying hard.
Riko Dogge was in fact so much of a raving shitbag that he was castrated specifically because he kept trying to eat the boyfriend of his owner’s sister, which isn’t really a state of affairs that can be left to go on happily for too long.
Said boyfriend, Bazza, ultimately adopted Riko with a view to rehoming him, as Riko was so batshit insane that it was either that or take the pentobarbital fast train to the big dogfight in the sky.
He used to be highly aggressive with both dogs and people, as well as completely out of control and impossible to leave alone for any length of time. After a few months, Bazza had worked intensively with Riko in order to retrain him and making him safe and suitable to be around other dogs and people, but was not having any luck in finding a suitable home to take him on. Ultimately, Bazza decided that Riko was now his dog and that despite initially being resolutely against taking Riko on permanently, changed his mind.
Riko is now a totally different animal, not only good with both people and other dogs but friendly with children, highly obedient and a pleasure to be around- all thanks to Bazza, who had never owned a dog before!
Another dog who looked into the face of the god of death and said, “Not Today.”
Pippa Watson
I’ve only met Pippa Watson once, and it wasn’t the most rewarding of experiences, as I cooed down at her tiny, fluffy-cotton haired form and showered love on her, while she hid behind her dad shivering and wishing I would go away. Pippa Watson is a Bolognese dog (I know, right?) and is one of my faves as, despite our initial meeting not going so well, little white fluffy Pippa is highly entertaining thanks to her penchant for not being white and fluffy, as evinced by her puddle-diving after a bath and blow dry, shown here.
Pure comedy gold, AMIRIGHT?
Goth dogs of the internet
Behold, some of my faves:
An American bulldog at Whitby Goth Weekend.
Another of those little rat-things…
This is a… Nope. No idea. What the fuck, though.
