4 Dogs and a Corvette by Brian Peck

4 Dogs and a Corvette Brian Peck

The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people who are at risk of, victims of or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017, this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high-quality opportunities that nourish the minds, expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive selfprojection to author new life narratives.

Since January 2017, ConTextos has collaborated with the Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Division X of Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narrative about violence and peace-building, and help author a hopeful future for these men, their families, and our collective communities.

While each memoir's text is solely the work of the Author, the images used to create this book's illustrations have been sourced from various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering, and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into fully illustrated books.

In collaboration with

4 Dogs and a Corvette Brian Peck

I was named the Dog Man of Oak Brook on Halloween of 1997 because I was driving my

1995 Convertible Corvette at 122 miles an hour with the top down & all four of my little

doggie girls were behind the seats in the trunk that stores the convertible top. Their heads

were sticking out from behind the sides of the seats enjoying the fresh windy air. I was

going east on Butterfield road from Park boulevard in Glen Ellen. Once I passed Route 83 I

saw the Oak Brook police were chasing me to pull me over by the Marriott Hotel.

Once I pulled into the hotel parking lot, the Oak Brook police officer walked over with a

flashlight & told me I was going 122 miles an hour. I was also drunk because I was at a

friend's Halloween party in Elmhurst. I thought it would be funny to bring Chu Chu, Doris,

Rosie & Lue Lue back to the party. Well, the police officer was very nice & told me my dogs

had jumped out the passenger side window and were running all over the hotel parking lot.

So I got out of my vett & put the top up & I called the girls to get back in the car. I then was

eating another long Slim Jims and since I was hungry from drinking. After about 45 minutes

the police officer walked back to my car & said “Are you able to drive home now?” and I

said yes.

So the police officer told me to call my dogs back into the car because he told me I forgot

to close the passenger window & all 4 of my little girls jumped out the passenger side

window and were running around playing with the Oak Brook Police all the time I was

looking at the searchlights of the squad cars. The police officer told me the only reason I

was not getting arrested for a DUI was they didn’t want to do all the paperwork to impound

4 dogs & a Corvette. He told me I would now be known to the Oak Brook police as “the

Dog Man of Oak Brook” and I must go straight home & not speed. So I did as he told me.

My little baby girls saved my ass that Halloween night in 1997. Thank god I didn't have an

accident, my little girls could have been hurt or killed. I never did that again. Halloween shit

happens!

I have had dogs since I was 4 years old. In 1978 my mom bought a keeshond puppy for

my Grandmother Doris. We named the puppy Chu Chu. The first night Chu Chu slept in my

room at my grandparents house in Miami, in the middle of the night Chu Chu was whining

and trying to climb into bed with me. I woke up and she was too small to get up into the

bed, so I lifted her up & put her next to me on the bed so I could get some sleep.

It worked, Chu Chu fell asleep. That bonded us together. My grandmother kept Chu Chu in

Miami and I returned home. In 1981 my grandmother Doris had a stroke & Chu Chu came

to live with me and my mom. I loved Chu Chu and she loved me back. We were so close,

one day I woke up in bed and Chu Chu was sleeping with her head on my pillow with her

nose pressed against my nose, Chu Chu was still asleep. I looked at her for a few minutes

to see how beautiful and sweet she was. This shows how close we were.

A few years later my Grandmother Doris was well enough to take Chu Chu back. In 1991

during the summer Chu Chu died of an infected uterus. I lost Chu Chu and it was like the

death of a human child. However in 1993 I bought my first home in Lake Barrington Shores

golf course community. I bought a 6 week old keeshond from a breeder in New Lenox, Ill. I

named the puppy Chu Chu II the same as my first keeshond. Chu Chu II was a very smart

but stubborn little girl.

In her obedience school at the Barrington Park District she refused to walk around the

gym so I pulled her by her leash while she stayed sitting until the instructor said “Your dog

is the only one who doesn't need air.” So I stopped dragging Chu Chu and asked her to

follow me and she did. Chu Chu played with my neighbors poodle/schnauzer Snuffles. My

neighbor would throw a tennis ball down the back fair way of the golf course & Chu Chu

would chase Snuffles back & forth. It was good exercise for both of them. One day Chu

Chu refused to obey my command to go home.

I always train my dogs to obey off leash. That day Chu Chu thought she would do what she

wanted and kept running away from me. I chased her all over the Golf course screaming at

her but she would not obey. After chasing her for over 45 minutes I grabbed a flat rock &

threw it from 20 yards away. The rock hit her in the back of her head and then ricocheted

20 feet straight up in the air and she laid down and stayed down. I showed her to obey me

or else. I walked up to her and picked her up & carried her back home. Chu Chu never ran

away from me ever again.

The next funniest thing Chu Chu ever did was when I went on a cruise and I was gone for

4 days. She stayed with my mom who spoiled her rotten. When I came home and put my

clothes bag and suitcase on the floor. While I was getting drinks for my mom & friends of

mine I noticed Chu Chu had climbed on top of my clothes bag and took a shit. We laughed

& laughed. See how stubborn Chu Chu was. Chu Chu was showing her protest that I left

her behind. I didn’t punish her that time.

In 1996 I moved to Glen Ellen where I bought a 5000 square foot Ranch House on an acre

of land. Chu Chu missed her doggie friend Snufflers so I decided I would breed her so she

would have puppies to keep her company. I called the breeder I bought her from and she

gave me the name & phone number of a good male Keeshond to mate her with. Chu Chu II

got pregnant on the first try. My vet told me she was a small keeshond & told me she would

only have 2 to 3 puppies.

Well after Chu Chu gave birth she had 5 little girls that lived 1 female and 1 male died

because my mom let Chu Chu fall asleep & she suffocated the two puppies. I only had

read a short book about how to deliver puppies. My mom and her friends who gave birth to

several children freaked out during the birth. I was the one who was calm and knew what to

do. I named the five puppies Doris, Rosie, Bobalu, Norma & Lue Lue.

They were beautiful & very small about the size of a fat hamster. Lue Lue was the biggest

baby of them all. She was furry and her eyes were open & she could see right away. Well as

they got bigger they were pissing all over my house and carpeting & chewing everything.

Norma chewed a hole in the wall in my kitchen, she chased Chu Chu around the house

eating her tail. After about 4 months I was able to train them to piss & shit outside by

following Chu Chu outside when she had to go to the bathroom. After 6 months they were

becoming too much to handle so my mom took Bobalu & Norma home with her. My mom

loved them like they were human children just as I did.

The reason I loved the puppies and Chu Chu so much was that they loved me as much as I

loved them. No matter if I had money to burn or was struggling to keep a roof over our heads,

they loved me all the time through good times and bad. Their love was unconditional. When

times were tough all the people in my life forgot how generous and kind I was. I think since I

wasn’t picking up the check for expensive dinners and extravagant parties no one would help

me when I was broke. Family and friends didn’t give a shit if I needed help.

For all these reasons I loved my little girls so much. Even now, they are all dead. I still love

them and miss them terribly. The dogs were angels from heaven and the human beings were

all just fucking leaches. So f--- the humans. I love my baby girls. My doggie daughters ruled

my world.

Mom made a few mistakes though, like walking them in a thunderstorm. A huge bolt of lightning hit

a tree a few yards away & exploded & blasted white light that scared Norma & Bobalu so bad they ran back home and dragged my mom all the way to her house & then they ran to the basement and hid and shaked like crazy with fear. After that experience, if there were any thunderstorms Norma and Bobalou would run to the basement and cuddle next to my mom for comfort.

I took videos of the progress from small puppies to adults & many pictures over the course of

their lives. I kept Chu Chu, Doris, Rosie & Lue Lue. I had them groomed every two months so

they were clean and beautiful always. Once the puppies I kept were old enough to not go to

the bathroom in the house I let them all sleep in my bed. One night I said “It's time to go to bed

girls” they all started barking & racing down the hallway to my bedroom.

I was very surprised at first. I had no idea what they were up to. When I reached my bedroom I

understood what they were doing. They were each laying their heads on my pillow just waiting

for me to lay down on my pillow so they could go to sleep near my face.

I loved them just like human children. Over the course of their lives we went to bed together

over 7000 nights and days together, from when Chu Chu & the puppies were born from the

very last puppy passed on.

One other time I had all 4 of my little girls in the Corvette but the top was up. I was driving

through Hillside & the police pulled me over for speeding. So I pulled over and the police

officer walked up to the vette & I rolled down the window to talk to the cop & all of a sudden all

4 of my girls jumped out the window & ran all up & down the block and they didn’t listen to me

calling them to get in the car. So the cop called for backup and the fire department came fast.

A squad car showed up & police and firemen were running after my girls for over 1/2 an hour

before they had enough fun & finally got back into the Vette. Now I am called the DogMan of

Hillside. The female canine officer said she had to love a man with 4 dogs and a Corvette!

Of all the puppies my favourite ones were Rosie and Doris. I loved Rosie because she was the

smallest of the pups & she was a great fighter. Rosie would attack bigger dogs like German

Shepards, Dobermans, Pitbulls, Rottweilers and she would bite the shit out of them! She was

only 29 pounds but she would bite the bigger dogs all over their legs & stomach because she

was so small she was able to move so fast the bigger dogs couldn’t stop her or be fast enough

to bite her.

Remember Rosie is half wolf! When her eyes turn red the bigger dogs run away. She is like

Napoleon, a little killer, my Rosie. My other favorite was Doris. She was very big and fat and

she looked like a bear. She was 69 pounds. She liked to always play in my bed so I called her

Bed Bear.

The name stuck to her Doris the Bed Bear!!! Doris was so adorable. She would run over to me

and jump up on the sofa. She looked me straight in my face and snapped her teeth together

just one time then would smile at me and I would grab her and pull her closer to me so I could

give her a kiss on her cheeks and hug her. My Big Bed Bear Doris!!!

One day I let my little baby girls out in the backyard. I noticed Dorris was jumping up and

down. Turns out there was this little leaf sticking out of the fence. She was jumping like 3 feet

straight up to try and bite this one little leaf. She was this huge Keeshond jumping up and

down so high it looked like the Bed Bear was hopping on a trampoline. So I walked up to

Dorris and looked her in her cute face and I snapped my teeth together one time. So Dorris

looked at me and snapped her teeth one time in response. That became our inside joke and a

signal we loved each other so much. We sometimes would have little contests of snapping our

teeth back and forth, one snap of our teeth at a time.

Lue Lue was the most beautiful. She was like a show dog and she outlived all of her sisters.

Lue Lue lived to be 17 years old. Looking back, I was always too overprotective of Rosie. I

think she was so fearless because I was always with her so I guess I was her Groot! If a dog or

human ever hurt one of my little girls I would literally Rip them to pieces & break every bone in

their body.

In 2005 Chu Chu was sick. I thought she was ill from eating something bad. I took her to my

mom's house so Chu Chu could have my mom cook some chicken soup to make her feel

better. I took Chu Chu back to my house in Hinsdale and I made a bed of comforters so Chu

Chu could sleep by me in the living room. I slept on the couch all night talking and petting her.

The next day she was even worse, so my mom came and picked up me and Chu Chu to go

to the emergency room at a pet hospital. I was holding Chu Chu on my lap. With her face held

against my neck. I opened the window of the car to get some fresh air in & Ch Chu sat up and

leaned back upside down towards the window & that was the moment she died.

I got her to the ER and she seemed to still be breathing. But the nurse said she was already

dead & the breathing was just a reflex. Chu Chu was gone. She was only 12 years old but

she was a great dog & and great mother of my angels that me and my mom loved them every

second of every day they were alive. Once my mom told me “maybe we shouldn’t do this”

when I told her I was going to mate Chu Chu. I know my mom meant that maybe we shouldn’t

do this because one day they all would be gone. I told my mom that we are only alive a short

amount of time.

We should enjoy ourselves and have Chu Chu bring the Blessings of the puppies into this

world. I also told her we are going to enjoy however long they live. I made the right choice to

bring the puppies into this world.

They were one of the best things that ever happened to me and my mom.

People can’t live life fully being afraid of the fact that one day we are going to die.

My late Rabbi Asher Turin always said “Everyday is a gift” and so it really is.

If you have good health you have all you need!

I Am From Poem Brian Peck I am from guitars From Fenderstaff and Gibson Les Paul I am from Humboldt Park Dangerous, fighting all the time, but it felt like home I’m from white roses Loved by pornstar girlfriend I’m from Rosie and Doris the bed bear I’m from the tendency to over drink and over eat From don’t touch the hot frying pan and listen to my advice once I’m from Jewish heritage, to be the best I can be I’m from Melrose park From Lobster and Filet Mignon From grandpa Eli a cook county sheriff and alderman Who would get me tickets to the circus.

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