Legendary Chihuahuas I Have Known

I no longer doubt the power of very small dogs

“An eagle will probably get him,” my brother said about his daughter’s chihuahua, King, when the family moved to a ranch, miles from town.

King had lived a fairly pampered life up until that time, riding in my niece’s purse, or her backpack. He slept on her bed and ate table scraps when she secretly shared food from her plate.

My brother didn’t love the tiny dog. He figured King couldn’t adapt to big open fields full of varmints. The dog was bound to get picked up by a coyote if the Eagles and Hawks didn’t get him first.

But it’s not the way the game played out.

King changed into a farm dog. He hunted and killed snakes. He ran with the coyotes at night and returned home exhausted. No varmints or birds of prey dared mess with him. He turned out to be a badass chihuahua after all.

I can’t remember how he died. I think he was run over by a car on the road to my brother’s home. The family gave him a memorial, and King’s legend lives on.

I also remembered a friend who operates a western-themed motel in Palm Springs. She started rescuing chihuahuas. She finds new owners and keeps some of the pups for herself. She has a significant Facetime following, and she has had success in rehoming the tiny dogs.

She seems to adore that particular breed. It’s the breed most often abandoned by owners in the LA area.

My new chihuahua friend Benny is the pup I dog-sat for my stepdaughter, Aziza, for seven days around the holidays. At first, he was skittish. He wouldn’t let me pet him.

Once he realized his owners were not returning anytime soon, I became his sole chance for attention.

I could never get him to go on walks or wear a sweater, but he was fine asking to go out in the backyard to do his business.

We played fetch and tug of war inside the house. He slept like a comatose Rip van Winkle during the day. Bennie insisted on sleeping under the covers in my bed at night.

He took up a lot of space, despite being so small. I had often had to lift him to shift him around. He accommodated by grumpily growling.

In the last few days, he got pent up without having been walked, and he started humping pillows and tearing them open. It was somewhat better than my previous dog, Tex, who humped men who came to visit. Tex weighed around 50 pounds.

I’m still not ready to get a new dog. I want to travel to California to visit my Mom and accompany my partner, Beth, to Alaska to help her take care of her Mom. I may also go to Brooklyn again to visit Aziza, her girlfriend, and Bennie, but I’ll need to see how much traveling my oncologist will approve and how many of her thousands of Alaska Airlines miles Aziza is willing to donate.

Key Message: My Experience with and Understanding of Chihuahuas is Expanding