NOT THE KIND OF DOG DAYS YOU WANT

Keep your dogs away from me. Seriously.

If you love your dogs, keep them as far as away from me as possible, because only bad things seem to happen whenever I get around them.

It started last week when I got a call from the vet. "It's Nero," she said. I knew that was bad news, mainly because Nero was my parents' dog, and my parents were out of town. Doubtful that she was calling just to say, "Hey, Mike, just wanted to let you know that everything is fine with your parents' dog."

Combined with the fact that Nero was, in people years, about 200 years old, it added up to a bad day.

Nero had been going downhill for some time. His legs were giving out on him with more and more frequency, and he looked like a shell of his former self.

We had had several scares over the past few years. This time, the doctor told us, was probably the last time. I called my dad so that he could discuss matters with the vet. A short while later, my dad called me back, and said he and the vet agreed that Nero had reached the unfortunate point. My sister and I went down to the vet and sat with him for a few minutes before the doctor came in.

Nero nestled his head in my sister's lap, as his breathing slowed and his body relaxed. In a few minutes, Nero no longer hurting. I am sure that he is rooting through a bottomless trash can in the sky.

Figuring I had used up my negative canine karma, I took my two dogs to the vet a few days later for their annual tune-up. When I went to pick them up, the clerk told me that the doctor wanted to see me in a room. I figured my mange was bad again.

When she walked in, she shook her head and sighed.

I immediately knew that something was not right. "Which one and what is it?"

"It's you. It's your mange," she said. I knew it!

OK, what she said was, "Montgomery. He's got heartworms."

Now, perhaps I'm being foolish, but I was fairly certain that heartworms were something that other people's pets got. I, after all, was immune to such pet-related disasters.