The pet I’ll never forget: Margaret Cho on Ralph the dog, ‘truly the love of my life’
When I saw Ralph in the animal shelter, he was the most sickly-looking puppy. He was small, with a terrible head injury and a lot of fleas. He was sitting in the back of a cage with a lot of other puppies and he just looked as if he was getting trampled on.
It was 1997 and I was in a deep depression. I guess I picked the dog that matched how I felt inside – trampled on, sad and alone. The vet said: “This dog is probably going to die,” but I was not going to give up on him. I started to take care of him around the clock, hand-feeding him and taking him into the vet to hydrate him with injections. The film The English Patient had come out and he reminded me of the convalescing character, played by Ralph Fiennes, which is how he got his name. I was his Juliette Binoche, nursing him back to health so that he could become the romantic hero he was always meant to be.
He got better really quickly and he grew and grew. I thought he was going to be a small dog – he was about 1.4kg (3lb) when I got him – but he ended up growing up to be a 30kg boy.
We were constant companions. We had our routines: our morning workouts, our meal times. He would sleep in my bed and lie his head on the pillow.
I think he didn’t really believe he was a dog, because whenever we went to a dog park he would just stick by me. He didn’t want to play with other dogs. When I adopted my second dog, he would look at Bronwyn like: “I’m sorry, I don’t know if you know this, but they don’t allow dogs here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
I ended up having three dogs. When a trainer came over, Ralph would sit next to me, as if to say: “It’s really good that you’re doing this, because they’re out of control.” He wouldn’t do any of the exercises, because he was above it.
Ralph really loved people, but he was very suspicious of dogs. He did eventually allow the other dogs to sleep on his bed next to him, but he had a special “office” underneath the stairs where only he could go. It was filled with thousands of tennis balls, because he didn’t really like toys, but he loved tennis balls and he would hoard them. He reminded me of a film noir detective, like from a Raymond Chandler novel, going into his office, awaiting the femme fatale of the day to present him with an impossible case.
My song Hey Big Dog is about Ralph. He had a big fear of wind; it would make him hide. We have the annual Santa Ana winds in California, which were terrifying for him. The song is a duet between him and me – although he is voiced by Fiona Apple.
Ralph died in 2009, after we had been together for about 12 years. The grief never really goes away – you just learn to live with it – but it was a huge problem in my life for a long time. The pain of grieving an animal was not something I was prepared for.
I think Ralph made me understand the truth of unconditional love. Nothing compares to what I felt for him; no person comes close. He was truly the love of my life. I think people think that is sort of sad, but it’s not – it’s wonderful to experience that depth of emotion for another being.
The vet said: ‘This dog is probably going to die,’ but I was not going to give up on him