Bunchers

 “You touch my sister again, I'll kill you.”

- Sonny to Carlo Rizzi

The Godfather

            A concerned friend forwarded me an email that originated from the Minnesota Dog Rescue about a nefarious dog-snatching ring.

            It reported that a girl from Grand Rapids had her English bulldog puppy ripped from her arms by a man in a white-panel truck.

            These “bunchers” from Virginia troll the Midwest for dogs, the email said. They steal pups from fenced yards, tie-outs, and even front porches.

             “God knows how many bunchers are out there, and how many vehicles are being used,” said the email.

            I have always feared kidnappers. When my children were young, I pictured many disturbing scenarios. In one particularly horrifying landscape, a maniac perched in every tree and waited for the opportunity to drop on my kid and bag her.

            In another nightmare, we were at Cedar Point, where I believed every other person was armed with hair dye. While I was at the concession stand, the would-be kidnapper yanked my kid into a restroom and doused him with Lady Clairol in order to change his hair color and render him unidentifiable. As the maniac pulled him away from the amusement park, my child was silent for the first time in his life -- no arguing, complaining, or whining. Even when he was dragged away from the Demon Drop and the Dippin’ Dots, my kid didn’t make a sound. When I finally looked up from my Elephant Ear, my child had quietly vanished.

            Now this thing with the bunchers was all I had to hear. I’m worried about Vito.

            I used the scary email as an opportunity to have a talk with him on how to keep from being the victim of all kinds of abuse.

            “If a human touches you in an area that makes you uncomfortable,” I said, “You have the right to bite him.” He seemed receptive, so I took advantage of the teachable moment to discuss safe sex and abstinence.

            After that, we both felt he was better equipped to handle bunchers, and whatever other threats awaited him in the outside world.

            During our last visit to the vet, I could tell Vito had listened during our talk. When the vet said that he was going to administer a syringe of the Bordetella vaccine up the nose, Vito went into full metal jacket. After our sex talk, he thought “Bordetella” was a doggie STD. There was no way he was going to accept that being shoved up his snout without a fight.

            As the vet squirted the Bordetella into his nostril, Vito nipped him. The vet told me we needed to work on Vito’s “mouthiness.”

            I understood where the vet was coming from, but I also knew that Vito defended himself in the only way he knew how.

             Next talk, Vito and I will discuss the difference between a doctor’s good touch and a buncher’s bad one. I admit the talk would be easier if I had ever heard the word buncher before the Minnesota Dog Rescue email. I still don’t know exactly what they are. Here I’ll be talking to Vito about their touch, and for all I know, bunchers might be aliens without hands.