Carlos Kotkin - Coco

 

 

Hello. When I was a kid, I was about 9 or 10, I used to go with my dad to the dog pound to look at dogs, just go check them out. Sometimes we would take them for a walk and just look at them. We're going to the zoo. And one time we were at the dog pound and we're looking, and we see this dog, and it's an awful-looking dog. It's a ratty, small-- it was a poodle. And it was making a weird sound. [audience chuckle] It was a little older. It was just like-- and as we were looking at it, a woman who worked at the pound walked up to us and she said, "Do you guys like that dog?" And we were being polite. We said, "It's interesting." [audience laughter]

 

And she said, "Hopefully you like her enough to take her home, because she's about to be killed in 10 minutes." [audience laughter] And somehow, we ended up with this dog in my lap on our way home. Her name was Coco. And we get home and let Coco into the house, and Coco runs as fast as she can to my mother, who's sitting on the couch, and just jumps on her-- like her soulmate. And my mom looks at the dog and her immediate reaction is, "Oh, no." That was the appropriate reaction. And she told us, "Take this dog back." We said, "No, we can't, because it was about to be killed." And this sweet little old lady begged and pleaded with us, all she needs is a little love. And we gave her the same sell that the woman gave us. [audience chuckle] 

 

And my mom said, "Take it back." And we said, "How about this? Why don't we keep it for a month and see if Coco grows on us? And if she doesn't, then we'll find a new home for her." So, my mom agreed to those terms. And two weeks later we took an ad out in the Penny Saver [audience chuckle] advertising this free dog. She was very strange. She didn't want to go outside. She had to go outside to go to the bathroom, but she wouldn't leave the concrete patio, go on the grass. She would only pee and go to the bathroom in the cracks of the cement. And she always had to be under something-- under the table or under a desk. And she never made a sound except for this really strange heavy breathing every now and then. Very odd dog.

 

So we lasted two weeks. We took an ad out in the Penny Saver and we got a reply. And this family came over to the house to look at this dog. And we saw immediately when they looked at her, like, oh, that's not quite what we were imagining. [audience laughter] And we said, "She's a great dog. She's a little-- she's got her idiosyncrasies, but she just needs love. And it's just we've developed allergies and we can't. [audience laughter] But take the dog. You'll love her, I promise." So, they took the dog and they were holding her, and they had smiles-- like when people smile when they get a gift that they don't like and they don't know what to say. And they drove away with Coco. Goodbye, Coco. And two days later, we got a call from the dog pound. They said, "We have your dog. Coco's--" [audience chuckle and aww]

 

We said, "The pound? That's not our dog. We gave it away two days ago." "Well, she's still got your information, and you're the only contact. Coco is here." [audience laughter] And I don't know why, but my dad and I, we thought, well, let's just go visit her. We'll go say hi to Coco. [audience laughter] So we went to the pound, and there she was, and she was so happy to see us. And she's wagging her tail-- "Hi, Coco! It is you." [audience laughter] And then after a few minutes, we left. We started to walk away, and it was the first time I ever heard Coco bark-- and bark and bark. And I'm not a dog whisperer, but I'm pretty sure she was saying, "Where are you going? Take me with you. [audience laughter] What are you doing?" And we felt really bad, but we kept walking and we– [audience laughter]  And we got in the car and we sat in the car and we got out of the car and went back and got Coco, brought her back to the house. And she was like a college roommate that you get assigned that you can't do anything about. [audience laughter] She was just-- and people would come over to the house and say, "What's that?" We'd say, "That's Coco. She lives here." And she lived with us for a whole other year. And then she got-- she was old, and we put her down, humanely, for real. It was her time to go. But she had a good year. And that year that she lived was a whole year she would not have lived were it not for a great deal of persuasion. Thank you.