Saturday, November 25, 2006

Lucy is a seven year old Chihuahua with refined climbing and scrambling abilities. She’s agile and quick. Maggie is a miniature dachshund of indeterminate age possessing all the coordination and grace for which the breed is famous. Maggie runs at the couch, takes a mighty leap and gains purchase on the seat cushion with her front paws, then slides slowly to the floor. Lucy is taller than Maggie but masses about one-third of a tiny wiener dog’s bulk. Both have marble sized clear brown eyes, but Lucy’s are protuberant. In a tussle it’s Maggie’s strategy to squash her opponent, raising that mass of mini-dog flesh above the agile Chihuahua and flopping down in a move reminiscent of the best of WWF.

I have always enjoyed the company of larger dogs, those weighing up around fifty pounds. My impression of the smaller breeds is colored by a bad relationship with my mother’s old and curmudgeonly miniature poodle, a mutt whose passing I did not grieve. Last night, in the company of canine midgets, I was pleased to discover that they are every bit as doggy as their larger cousins. They yap when a big dog would yap. They eat things that disagree with them and lie about under the dinner table passing gas. They’re cuddlesome to a fault.

Small dog benefits I can imagine for the urban dog owner include a miniature stool to match a miniature appetite requiring only a sandwich bag for disposal. Whatever…

I love Lucy.

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