My Dog Is So Metal: Life With Comet

Slideshow images: “Comet 4,” “Comet, Harbinger of Doom,” “Comet 3,” “Koda,” “Tonka,” “Piglet,” “Diamond,” and “Coconut.” photos and art: Pat Lake

A raging metal song can make you imagine going feral, roaming the land and gnawing bones for survival. Extreme times make extreme music and art, and I like drawing scary-cute, punk-metal-flyer style pet portraits. (I also like SF's Molten for good new thrash-death metal, check it out.)

Drawing is just a small part of my ongoing rotation of jobs and pursuits without a boss. For 20 years, I've thrived on chaos as an animator, freelance journalist, art and bicycle instructor, internet seller, and pet sitter.

But struggling artists and shelter dogs share a common problem: the cost of living. And when people can't afford housing, they often are forced to surrender their pets.

Shelters across the nation are overflowing with abandoned animals, and the Bay Area is no exception. Many good pets are being killed due to lack of space, according to the reform activists at People for Animal Advocacy & Welfare - Contra Costa County (PAAW.CC).

When shelters have to kill for space, animals with special needs are generally the first to go as they’re less apt to be adopted than a cute new puppy. Surviving against these odds takes a special dog indeed - like Comet, the second of my three rescues.

Comet is an older white fluffball, 20 pounds of (possible?) Pomeranian mix. He arrived, seemingly from space, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. There was an ad for a lost dog who nobody claimed. He looked like a super pettable teddy bear, and no one revealed any issues that might make him unadoptable. I took him home and named him for having a cool tail (and for being a harbinger of doom, as it turned out).

Comet was perfectly peaceful with other dogs, and his issues with people weren't obvious right away. But it soon became apparent that Comet had likely been neglected, abused, or feral and had been forced to fight for food. This revealed itself with defensive biting. I had to choose whether to keep this bite-y boy or to surrender him to an almost certain death at a shelter. I kept him.

Now Comet is on a lifetime watch for triggers. I feed him in private and have trained him to wait for permission to eat. I warn visitors about his tendency to guard space (and me!). He sleeps on my bed every night, which means nobody else can. With these guardrails in place, things are almost always fine - except when they’re not. He was recently let off leash and came back with a huge fried chicken thigh in his mouth.

The fried chicken surprise probably came from a neighbor’s trash. It was almost as absurd as if he’d stolen a string of sausages while being chased by a cartoon dogcatcher. But the scary part was his feral instinct. I could only look into his little demon eyes and fruitlessly appeal to him to drop it while he crunched the whole thing down. The other option was turning my hand to hand-burger. (Of course, I worried about the chicken bones, but he ended up fine.)

It's a miracle Comet got matched with a solo owner like me who knows he isn't aggressive to people outdoors, or to other dogs, including the Chihuahua he lives with. He has only been shy and well-behaved at the vet. At the park, if bigger dogs want to say hi, he sometimes runs to me to hide or to be picked up. That's why my imperfect pet can keep infesting my house with cuteness.

Want to help save dogs like Comet and his less bite-y brethren? If you’re an artist, please consider donating a portrait commission to a rescue benefit auction, like the annual Bad Art FUNdraiser from Oakland Animal Services.

Comet’s not perfect and you don’t have to be either. Just pick up your brush, pencil, or camera and show you care.