Today, I’m going to reveal a secret I’ve been keeping for the last couple years:

I’m in a gang.

Yup. You read that right.

I’m in a bona fide Italian gang – The Mutz.

Our turf is the cobblestone streets, back alleys and sidewalks of the town of Torre de’ Passeri in the region of Abruzzo, Italy and the foothills to the north of town that are covered in olive trees, wheatfields, chestnut groves, thickets, brambles, and farm paths.

Our headquarters is Villa d’Abruzzo on the outskirts of town. It’s a swish place with lots of treats, soft places to snooze, a pool and a steady stream of two-legged suckers who give us people food without us even begging.

**The Mule hanging out with the four full-collar members of the Mutz at headquarters after a successful hill patrol.**

We have four full-collar members and one honourary member – me. The full-collars call me the Mule because I carry the water, treats and lunch in my backpack. Also, on our patrols, they lead me around by strings attached to them like some kind of two-legged, goofy looking pack animal. Another job I have is to drive the magic moving box to the far away patrols we do in the montains sometimes. The Mutz love these patrols and we are always looking to expand our terriority. The full-collars tolerate me because I am useful and I have treats. They even give me licks and hugs, but I know they don’t really know why I hang around them. They also don’t know why after they drop dookies on the sidewalk I pick them up with little plastic bags and put them in the bin near headquarters that the men with the smelly truck take away every few days. I think the Mutz think that’s pretty weird, or maybe some kind of theft.

**The Brain is the leader of the Mutz. She’s an accomplished con artist with a history of getting what she wants, when she wants it. She also wears a mask 24/7. The Brain was born a gangster.**

Our leader is the Brain, one of the most cunning, clever, and deceitful creatures you will ever come across. The Brain can lift the lid off any garbage can, steal salami and cheese from a serving plate in the blink of an eye, and get out of any fenced yard. She’s also an accomplished conman who taught us how to look pathetic and hungry and maybe even a bit abused as we cower and look longingly in the eyes of the suckers. One look like that and sausages shower down on the Brain. She’s so smart, she just showed up at headquarters one day, liked the look of the place, and never left.

The Brain gets what she wants, and what she wants most is scratches, meaty people food and soft places to sit. She looks sweet and innocent, but, make no mistake, you don’t get to be the leader of an outfit like the Mutz by being soft. If one of us steps over the line, the Brain is on us like a Shnauzer on a rat.

Then there’s the Mouth. She’s called the mouth because she never stops yapping, barking, growling and generally harassing anything and anyone she encounters. It doesn’t matter what it is – workmen in bright clothing, cats, other canines, cars, scooters, lizards, bicycles, porcupines, wild boar, deer, blowing leaves and papers, or bocce balls – they all get a blast of shit and abuse from the Mouth. Once, a burly construction worker on a reno across the alley from headquarters tried to make friends with the Mouth by giving her chicken cutlets. She ate the cutlets, then tried to bite the dude before chasing him down the street screaming her head off like she was going to kill him. The Mouth is heartless.

**The Mouth hurls invective and abuse at everything and everyone she meets. She hates cats, lizards, and pretty much everything else. She likes scratches and treats.**

But she has a flaw: She starts lots of fights, but if her enemy fights back even in the slightest, she scampers away whining like a crybaby. She’s like those guys who don’t want to get a little ouchy in the arm to help stop the worst pandemic in 100 years. Like them, the Mouth talks a good game, but deep down, she’s wimpy.

That’s where The Muscle comes in. He’s so big and mean looking nobody screws with us. He’s so tough he doesn’t even have a collar. Instead, on our patrols, he wanders around wherever the hell he wants, scaring the poop out of cats, other roaming canines, and the odd old lady too.

**When you’re as big as the Muscle, you don’t have to say anything. Just one look from the Muscle and everybody and everything backs down.**

The Muscle lives close to headquarters on a farm, and he drops by every day for treats and to devour whatever is in the food bowls like he hasn’t eaten in days. He goes with us on hill patrols to keep all the critters in line. He’s the only one of us with a straight job. He does night security on the farm, making sure the chickens, sheep, four pigs, and a horse are safe from the reprobate foxes and wolves. Like clockwork at sundown, he leaves headquarters and punches his card at the farm. We tease him for his “normie” tendencies, but not too much, after all, he is the Muscle.

There is only one problem with the Muscle. Everytime we go to his farm to get him for the hill patrols, he sees us and comes running down the path at full-tilt. Often he doesn’t stop and bowls over the other full-collar members leaving them screaming and snarling, and then launches himself towards me. A few times when I didn’t react fast enough, his outstretched front paws connected with my crotch in a way that left me gasping in pain on the ground. Nobody said being a member of the Mutz would be easy.

The Mutz newest member is The Kid. Until recently, The Kid lived in a chicken coop next to headquarters. He wanted to be a member of the Mutz so bad, he would whine all day when he knew when we were around. Then he learned how to climb the fence and dig under it. Nothing could keep him from the Mutz, so we made him a full-collar member a few weeks ago. The Kid is a natural thief. He goes for anything of value – leather shoes and expensive sneakers, sox, clothes, anything edible within jumping range, and pieces of fruit from the trees around headquarters. It’s all fair game to the Kid.

**The Kid is going to be good member of the Mutz, and he is learning. But at the moment, he’s as dumb as he looks.**

Since he lived in a chicken coop, the Kid wasn’t exposed to much. So on our patrols, he’s still learning what is a threat and what is not. For instance, just last week, he barked for five minutes at a hay bale, bit a garbage can, and ran away from a woman pushing a stroller like she had a bomb in there. He also chased a heron-type bird for about 200 metres as it flew across a field about 30 metres up in the air. All the while, the Kid jumped and snapped at it and then barked at it furiously as it got away.

The Kid is excitable, but the Mouth and the Brain keep him in his place. They eat first. They determine who gets the soft spots. They make sure he knows his number in the pecking order, and that number is 17 out of four. Still, the kid is learning the ropes and one day he might even be the leader of the Mutz.

But that’s getting ahead of things. There’s plenty to occupy our time right now, right here.

We have all kinds of enemies who want to knock us off the throne, and we gotta keep them in line.

There’s the local cop Dino the Meano. Dino’s a nice man, but he gets really mad at us because the Muscle never attaches himself to me with a string. Dino also gets wicked angry when one of the full-collar members drops a deuce on the sidewalk and I forgot the poop bags. When Dino drives by the full-collars yell abuse at him, and he keeps on driving.

There’s the Little Christers gang below our headquarters too. They are three angry as hell lap dogs who live in a garage. They often get out and come to the headquarters gate near the garbage bins. We scream and yell at them and when the Brain or the Muscle are loose, they chase them back into the garage where they cower like a bunch of puppies.

**The Brian is so smart, she knows how to take selfies. There’s nothing the brain can’t do.**

We have to watch out for a couple hundred dogs in town behind gates too. A couple times a day, we walk around telling those guys not to dare come out on the streets because we own the place. Some even come right up to the gates and scream back at us. That’s when we dare them to come out for a butt kicking. Those dummies are so terrified of us, not one has ever opened the gate and come out to challenge us.

We are the law. They are weenies. And they know this.

One of our main concerns is cats. These things are everywhere in town keeping down the rodent gangs. They are like domesticated squirrels with jobs, not really pets. Still, these fury morons are arrogant and a few stand up to us snarling and hissing. But not for long. When one of these hairballs gets brave, the Mutz charge as a group and the feline dorks always scamper away.

Yup, the Mutz own the streets of Torre de’Passeri, but where we really shine is in the hills.

**The Muscle and the Kid going over the fine art of deer chasing.**

Here, the full-collar members let me walk free, no strings, as they traverse the hills, spread out in pack form leaving no hiding spot unchecked. Often, they flush foxes or roe deer, and when they do, the race is on. The foxes bolt in straight lines away from the pack, and the Mutz pursue for a while, but eventually they decide to have mercy on their canine cousins and let the foxes get away. The deer are different. They bolt here and there, zigzagging and doubling back, up and down and across the hills with the Mutz in hot pursuit. It can go on like a 20-minute-long Benny Hill scene before the Mutz remember to conserve their energy for future battles.

Every once in a scary while, the Mutz flush wild boars. At the first pig snort or squeal, the Mouth, the Kid, and I bolt down the path as fast as we effing can to a safe distance. Some minutes later, the Muscle and the Brain join us there. I don’t know what happens in between. But I do know this, it sounds awful. Still, everytime the Muscle and Brain are done with those ugly pigs, we walk back up the path and those boars are nowhere to be found. The Mutz own the hills.

So now you know my secret life. I’m in a bona fide Italian gang.

And not just any gang.

I’m a member of the The Mutz.

And we are the roughest, toughest, most treat-beggingest, cat fightingest, deer chasingest pack of all time … or maybe the last 10 days … 10 hours … maybe 10 minutes … ah … we don’t know … we aren’t very good at telling time.