Monthly Archives: September 2008

As a follow-up to last week’s discussion of ankle-threatening Chihuahuas, here’s a dramatic, touching, and perhaps even heart-warming story. It began with the following ad in the local paper:

“Two lost Chihuahuas, last seen Sunday, Sep. 21. One light tan, tall and skinny, goes by the name of Pancho, the other short and fat, mostly brown with some white, wearing an orange Harley Davidson collar, goes by the name of Cisco. Reward offered for safe return.”

I’m not sure just what size a Chihuahua has to be to be considered “tall.” Nor do I quite see the point of describing the other one as “short.” Of course he’s short—he’s a Chihuahua, for Pete’s sake.

It’s the Harley Davidson collar, though, that explains everything. There was a motorcycle rally in this area last week. It attracted some 30,000 bikers, according to an informant in leathers who was sitting on the porch of a coffee shop in a small tourist town.

So it’s a pretty good guess that Pancho and Cisco took off for the rally. In that crowd, nobody’s going to notice a couple more guys in their Harley gear.

But what really made the story intriguing was the second ad, right below the first one: “Lost last Sunday. White Poodle.”

Obviously, for a sheltered and pampered lady, the prospect of an escapade with two cool biker dudes was too much to resist. She just couldn’t pass up the chance to be seen on the back of a bike with these guys.

And who wouldn’t want to go along? Anyone, at least, who is a fan of old Western movies. Mount up, everyone—Pancho and The Cisco Kid are riding again.

Walking is great for the mind and the body. Its combination of physical exercise and contemplation is a wonderful aid to serenity.

Except for the dogs.

I know, I know, dogs who bark at pedestrians are just doing what dogs are supposed to do, guarding home and hearth from suspicious strangers. But protective intentions or not, after a while enough gets to be enough.

There are two Shelties down the street from us. No matter that we walk past their yard nearly every day and they should have figured out by now that we’re harmless. They still have yipping conniptions every time we go by. They dash back and forth along the fence, jumping up and down, shoving each other out of the way in order to claim first rights of abuse, and shrieking threats to our lives and insults to our ancestors. Obviously, these two ladies don’t have enough to do. We’ve seriously considered trying to sneak a few sheep into their yard some dark night.

In New Mexico, where we’re visiting right now, it isn’t Shelties, it’s Chihuahuas. They seem to be popular here, perhaps because it’s closer to their place of origin or they’re suited to the warmer climate. Or maybe it’s just because they get so many miles per ounce of dog food. It can’t be because they’re cheap. An ad in the local paper this week advertised Chihuahua puppies for $150 to $300 each. That’s a lot of money, especially figured by the pound.

Whatever the reason, plenty of these bug-eyed little yippers live here. We’ll be out for our daily walk, minding our own business like the health-minded good citizens we are, and every few blocks another pint-sized property protector dashes out of its yard. In a frantic falsetto, it threatens to tear us limb from limb—at least below the ankles.

Usually a few sharp words are enough to send them scurrying for home. But one day we encountered a little dog who seemed determined to chase us all the way home. After half a block or so, besides being fed up with his yapping, I started to worry that the obnoxious little guy would run us out of his neighborhood so far he’d get lost. I turned on him, stamped my foot a couple of times, and shouted. He turned tail and ran.

We continued our walk in peace—for a few minutes. Before we’d reached the next corner, there was a new outbreak of shrill barking behind us. There was our original pursuer, back in full yip. And right behind him was a second Chihuahua—slightly bigger, a little bit louder, and a whole lot scruffier. If he had been a couple of feet taller, he surely would have been named “Brutus.” My foot-stamping hadn’t scared Junior off; it had merely sent him after backup.

I suppose we should be grateful to be run after and barked at by guard dogs whose only threat is to our eardrums. Still, there’s something a bit insulting about it. Apparently we’re so harmless that Chihuahuas are enough to take care of the likes of us; the Rottweilers and pit bulls have more important things to do.

As I was out walking this morning, I glanced up to see a Chihuahua coming at me from across the street. It wasn’t barking yet, but it was pelting toward me as fast as its four-inch legs could carry it, a look of determination on its brow. I braced myself. It came nearer, and nearer—and ran right on by. Apparently it was late for an urgent appointment somewhere behind me.

Embarrassment is being barked at and chased by a dog no higher than your ankles. True humiliation, though, is being ignored by one.

As a kid, the only carnival rides I would venture on were the Ferris wheel and the carousel. Of course, at the little street carnivals that came to town for the Fourth of July and Labor Day, there weren’t a lot of rides besides those two classics. Still, even then I didn’t see the appeal in trusting myself to metal constructions designed to drop paying passengers with bone-jarring force, whip them from side to side, or spin them in nausea-inducing circles.

Today, in a bigger town at a bigger fair, the carnival rides are a lot more sophisticated. So am I, perhaps, but in some ways I haven’t changed. I’m perfectly happy to let more adventurous souls try the rides. I’d rather stay on the pavement, secured there by the cotton candy on the bottoms of my shoes, and watch the little kids ride the carousel.

From across the midway, the carousel was an exciting shimmer of gleaming animals and golden lights. On closer inspection, the mirrors were tarnished and the gilt paint needed some touching up. The animals—an ostrich, a rooster, a cat, and a tusked boar mixed in among the horses—were just a little too small, a little too skinny, a little too mass-produced.

The little kids riding them didn’t seem to care. The littlest one, probably not a year old yet, had trouble keeping her diaper-padded bottom in the saddle and would have slipped off the side had she not been held on safely by his mother’s arm around her chubby middle. She seemed cheerful enough, if a bit confused by the whole procedure.

Another little boy, about three, was riding by himself and not too sure he liked the idea. He came by the first time with a determined expression and a two-fisted grip on the pole. On the second revolution, he still had a firm hold, but had relaxed enough to smile at his dad as he went by. The third time around, he had decided this was fun, giving his family a big wave and a look-at-me grin. In a couple of years, he’ll probably be wanting to go on rides with names like “Cyclone” and “X-Treme Force.”

The Ferris wheel was sparsely inhabited, mostly by nostalgic older riders. I had no desire to join them. When I look at carnival rides now, I tend to check the girders for missing bolts while my mind considers uncomfortable questions like, “What kind of insurance do they have?” and, “Who maintains these things?”

Once in my life, however, I did go on a real Ferris wheel. The “Riesenrad” in Vienna is one of several in the world built in the late 1890’s. It’s the only one still in use, though it has been rebuilt after being burned during World War II. The wheel is hung with enclosed cars that look like miniature boxcars with windows. Riding it means standing in the car with perhaps a dozen other people, holding onto the railing and looking through the glass at the historic city waay down below.

As we rose majestically to the top of the wheel, one of the friends I was traveling with asked me, “Are you afraid of heights?”

“Oh, not really,” I said.

“I just wondered, because your knuckles are white and I didn’t think you were breathing.”

Of course I wasn’t breathing. We were 200 feet up in the air.

Maybe it was the chance to ride a piece of history. Maybe it was the excitement of foreign travel. White knuckles notwithstanding, I never once thought about insurance or maintenance while I was riding the century-old Riesenrad. Logical or not, I’d go on it again. Now that was a Ferris wheel.