Ay Chihuahua

Hershey and Taffy were their names. The only two canines to come into this house who could stand under a chair without lifting it up. Both of them were dropped off at the pet store where Pat worked; the animal equivalent of a baby left with a note “Please take care of my child.” In this case they were both of a broken home. Hershey was a male blue (blue is one of those misnomers famous in the dog world, because there wasn’t a blue hair on him – more like a grayish chocolate color), and Taffy, daddy’s little girl, was fawn.

Both the little ones went into the dog yard with Sam and Chevy. Now, it’s important to remember that Sam was about 70 pounds, with Chevy weighing in at about 60. But despite the heavy-weights, the dogs that ran their yard were the chihuahuas. Especially Taffy. She wasn’t about to take any crap from any of her other 4-legged yard-dwellers. There were 3 dog-houses in their pen, a world big enough for anyone to get exercise in. A small one for the chihuahuas, a medium house for Chevy and the largest one available for Sam. However, the one where the chihuahuas spent most of their time was . . . You guessed it, Sam’s domain. He would beg, cajole and make the most pitiful-sounding whimper, but the smaller dogs didn’t give up the large house unless they wanted to. This was especially painful to watch when it was raining. Then it seemed like Hershey and Taffy were being just plain mean. You might call Sam a wus, but when Taffy snarled, which she did whenever Sam or Chevy did anything to displease her, it was as ferocious as feeding-time in the lions den. I would have been intimidated, though neither she or her male counterpart, ever gave their mommy and daddy any lip.

We couldn’t let the small dogs into the house. Whenever they did come in, admittedly sometimes by accident, with their boundless energy and lightning-fast reflexes, the cats would scatter, barely having time to spit or sputter. Either one of the chihuahuas would pick up a ball 3-times bigger than themselves and fiercely shake it till it cried uncle. Godzilla, whom you’ll meet later, was fascinated by these rug-rats, and Cutiepie, Godzilla’s life-long companion, didn’t like these wind-up toys. Once Hershey got into the main body of the house without our realizing it, and before we were able to intervene Cutiepie grabbed the little boy by the scruff of his neck and shook him as though he were a rope toy. Hershey yelped and very convincingly played dead. It was a Sunday, so were were not able to get hold of our vet. We just put him in a dark, dry place with a blanket over him. Within hours he was back to his playful self, though he avoided the big black dog (actually black and tan, but again, more in a later posting)with all due caution.

I mentioned earlier that Taffy was daddy’s girl. Now, remember I am the guy that wasn’t especially fond of animals? Well, I didn’t like cats at all, nor did I want anything to do with small canines. Yeah, right. Those go under the heading of “Famous last words.” When we called the dogs in for the night, which we did almost every night in the beginning, then only on nights of really inclement weather, or on nights when birds of prey might likely swoop in and grab one of the chihuahuas, Sam and Chevy went right into their kennels, as did Hershey. But Taffy begged daddy to pick her up, which he usually did. Taffy buried her face into my neck, where I held her for a few minutes. Needless to say it didn’t take me long to warm up to small breeds.

After Taffy suddenly died (we never did figure out the cause of her young demise (she was only seven) called her in one night, and by next morning she was gone), Hershey mellowed to the bigger dogs, but still wouldn’t yield any ground if he really wanted something. He was one tough hombre. Tougher than almost anything. Except muscovy ducks. Those of you whom have raised ducks know that no matter what you do, muscovys are going to fly, unless you pinion them when they’re very young. Even at that I have my doubts that they will be grounded for life. More than a time or two a couple of our muscovy ducks would land in the dog yard. Now Chevy was famous for picking off anything dumb enough to fly sufficiently close to her snapping jaws. Chevy was incredibly sweet, but she was a hound dog, and a treeing walker fox hound at that. We lost a couple of guinea-fowl to her and at least a couple of quail. Now, if you know guineas you know they are not the shiniest nickels in the piggy-bank. And quail…well, quail are quail, and very difficult to control just because they are so small. However, when one of the muscovys found themselves in the chihuahuas yard, they just sat there hissing and complaining when one of the dogs got anywhere near him (or her). Nobody messed with these bundles of intimidation. I didn’t dare get too close unless I had on a pair of thick gloves. And even at that I wondered if I was going to survive with all my body-parts intact. All I can say is when they were around I was very glad I had not chosen to walk around naked (this is aside of the social ramifications, like scaring the neighbors).

In the words of Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that. When next we meet I will tell you about . . . No, I won’t tell you. Mainly cause I don’t know. But I do know I love to see you smile.

This entry was posted on 27. January 2010 at 21:32 and is filed under you're a blogger? You should be ashamed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.