OMG Lupita what did you just eat??

Lupita has entered the stage of lets-eat-everything-and-run-away-from-people-when-they-try-to-take-it-from-you. Everything is wonderful: cat shit, other people's used Cheetos lying on the ground from days hence, little poisonous berries that grow on bushes, wilted flowers, small chips of lead paint, well, you get the idea. Esperando thinks she has learned this from her association with Sweet Pickle, but I tell you all dogs learn this from their owners who want to take evil things away from them. 

This morning after I took my shower I noticed Lupita rooting around the bathroom floor looking like a little piglet (the curly tail doesn't help) in her quest for something to eat. Then I realized she was eating something. I thought maybe it was a small piece of caulking but it was very round. It looked like a little round white piece of paper, the kind a hole punch makes but smaller. I leaned over and saw the remains of half a pillow. ‘Oh my God!’ I thought,‘what has she eaten?’ I snatched the remaining half up. It could only have come from Esperando’s bathroom drawer, and must have fallen when he was taking his pills this morning before he took Sweet Pickle off for a walk. Was it medicine for blood pressure or cholesterol or something else, and what kind of harm would it do to a little 5-pound dog’s body and soul? I frantically pawed through his pill bottles until I found the matching culprit to be low dosage aspirin.

Hmm, I remembered my vet telling me some time ago that I could give Sweet Pickle aspirin for his arthritis, but only Ascriptin. And he weighs 60 pounds to Lupita's 5. I couldn’t remember what he said about why regular aspirin was bad for dogs. I thought about everything I knew about poison control—I was supposed to overdose her with water to flush out her system. It seemed so drastic and unpleasant for both of us until I knew if her eating this pill would kill her. On the other hand, she was a tiny little thing and how long would it take for the whole thing to dissolve and be ingested? So instead I gave her a really big portion of a favorite food hoping that a very full tummy would diminish some of these issues. Then I ran to the computer to look up ‘Chihuahua eating aspirin’. Yet one more time: how did we ever survive without the internet? Just about then Esperando returned from his walk.

He: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Looking to see if Lupita is going to die from the pill of yours she found on the floor and ate.”

He: “Oh, I looked everywhere for it and couldn’t find it. Where was it?”

Me: “I don’t know but she found it and was eating it.”

He: “When I couldn’t find it I finally decided it had fallen down the sink.”

Connecting to Yahoo seemed painfully slow, twice the screen froze up and I had to reboot. Finally I connected. There were several entries about giving a hurt Chihuahua puppy half of a low dosage aspirin tablet—exactly what Lupita had just eaten. Just be sure to give it to the puppy on a full stomach it said, so she won’t ulcerate her stomach. Unwittingly I had done just the right thing. It was a very scary moment with a very happy outcome.While all this was going on Lupita disappeared into our closet. Esperando got out of the shower, squeaky clean, and went into the closet to get dressed. He was leaving on a flight to Mexico City in an hour.

He, screaming: “On NOOOO! Arrrggggghh!”

Me, thinking he’s forgotten something important he needed to do before he leaving town: “What?”

He: “I just stepped in dog poop”.

Me: “Oh dear, I’m so sorry.”

This has happened before because our little darling is not properly housebroken yet. I've never seen a dog be so nonchalant about toilet matters. I haven't had the pleasure yet, but I am beginning to think Esperando needs to be looking down more when he's walking around in our house and not so caught up in the clouds with work issues. There's a message here somewhere. Who can say if just this one time she wasn’t getting even for a subconscious threat against her life had she had consumed a different sort of pill? I don’t really believe that, but it did have a sort of ring of justice to it; a little aromatic reminder of a small dog to wear on your person while you are on the road, just so you can remember your fabulous home life and your precious little beastie.

Cat Baiting

Back in the days of the Christians and the Romans, we know that the Romans liked their bread and circuses, liked hand-to-hand combat with gladiators, liked to watch people being torn to pieces by wild animals, liked to watch animals tearing one another apart and expected that kind of entertainment. Although Italy might have been the center of the Roman Empire, nonetheless the Spanish are descendents of these self-same Romans (hence the term ‘romance language’ when referring to Spanish, French and Italian languages). As representatives of that same Roman tradition, today here in Santa Rosalia we have still have cockfighting and dog fighting (and bull fighting elsewhere in Mexico). Moving right along to Casa Abeja with the advent of Lupita’s arrival, our house has sadly become a center for blood, well, fur sports, namely—cat baiting.



Any cat is good bait, but especially Winnie who is more active and more tolerant. We can boldly lick a cat on the face in the morning to show our Good Will and turn around and chase and bite the same cat boldly on the tail or other parts a mere 10 minutes later. When we really get into proper form, the mouth is full of cat fur, sufficient enough to look like a beard. The puppy knows that this is not acceptable, she has been told ‘no’, which generally lasts about 3 minutes until the puppy brain forgets, as it also forgets what housetraining is all about most of the time.

During the baiting the puppy approaches the cat, grappling it with the paws, trying to knock it on its side. Although the cat is twice as large, it is taken aback, falls over on its side from the onslaught and starts kicking the puppy with its hind legs. The puppy backs off and the cat bats it around with its front paws. The puppy then turns its rump to the cat, protecting its eyes from claws and making a strange puffing sounds. When we hear this puffing sound from another room we race in saying 'no, no, bad dog'. The cat takes off running at the interruption, the puppy gives chase.

The cat runs and jumps on the bed and watches the puppy leaping about making puffing noises, probably not unlike the sound a killer whale emits when hunting. The puppy can now jump up on the couch by herself, but still not the bed. At some point the cat races out of the bedroom, the puppy in full pursuit. The cat jumps up on the cat perch to get away. As the cat leaps it generally loses a chunk of fur that is left behind in the puppy’s mouth.

Sometimes the cat encourages this chasing. Bad cat. Can't help cats that encourage this kind of errant behavior.

Ayyyy, Chihuahua!

“Lupita you seem awfully sleepy today. Are you sick?”

“No, I just can’t wake up much, and why should I? I am really cold! And I am so bored, I need some new toys.”

“You mean besides two cats to chase and a big dog to annoy? Lupita, you have 5 toys of your own, you have taken over all of the cats 20 little catnip mice and sundry small toys, all of Dash’s toys. You have toys strewn across the entire house. Big toys, little toys, in-between toys.”

“Ah Mom. You don’t unnerstand. I need a new toy for every day. And it is so cold in my ancestral homeland. I only have two outfits. I need more clothes. People are going to think I’m a poor dog from the wrong side of the tracks. Besides now that I am growing my clothes are starting to shrink.”

“Lupita, I used to think that Chihuahuas were ugly, stupid, yappy little dogs, and maybe they still are, but you make a really cute puppy. I so admire your fat little hairless belly, your curly pig tail, your floppy ears that are too big for your head, your bulgy little eyeballs and your sweet little face that looks like a cross between a bat and a worried old lady with frown lines. I never knew a dog before that could sit in your lap and think it was a cat.”

Comparing Lupita's face to that of a bat


“I just like to lick everyone. Licking is good—it makes friends.”

“Lupita, you know the cats do not like being licked on the face. Why do you chase the cats so much anyway? First you lick them, and then you bite them.”

“Hah! It is my plan to keep them confused. When they wants to hit me then I run around in front of them chasing my tail. It is so fun. But my most fun is to run in little circles around the trees in the backyard.”

“By the way Lupita, you know how Winnie is called Sour Pickle for the condescending attitude he gets, and Dash is called Sweet Pickle because he always wants to please us, well speaking of names in that regard yours is Little Tickle, because you tickle my heart.”

She's got the devil in her heart; No, no, this I can't believe--The Beatles

Lupita is a handful. She chases the cats and is starting to nip at them now. The cats are alternately horrified and fascinated. Winnie is still kind and bats her gently, but Frida hisses and growls. Dash helps me out when I ask him to, trying to corral her outside when she is racing around, but she leaps at him and grabs mouthfuls of his fur and yanks it. She is still just a little puppy. To her credit when I say no she will generally stop tormenting the bigger animals. We just had a major zoomie action outside racing around in circles for about 30 minutes and now she has cratered. It took three of us humans and one big dog to corner her and grab her.

Then all of us, cats and dogs and me, went to the bedroom for a nap. I crawled under the covers and turned the electric blanket on. It is cold in the house since we do not have heating, and today I am wearing two sweaters and long underwear. I put Lupita under the covers and Frida immediately jumped off her perch to come lie on top of me too. This was fine, but after a while I woke up and wanted out. I had to re-arrange everyone. I left Lupita under the covers and Frida on top of the covers. In about 5 minutes Lupita emerged and walked over to Frida. Frida got an ‘oh brother, what’s going to happen now?’ expression on her face, but stayed put. Lupita stretched and fell down next to Frida and started licking her fur. When the bath was over I went and fetched Lupita off the bed. I apologized to Frida as her fur had been licked the wrong direction and was all standing up on end. However, I think it was a good start on befriending Frida.

The last three nights the caterwauls and screams of fighting of cats has come across the ether from outside our window. The first night Dash woke up from a dead sleep and went baying to the door, ready to settle any arguments all by himself. My cats were plastered to the window trying to catch a glimpse of the enemy combatants. Bruiser has vanished and it seems we have two new male cats trying to take his place and vying for the attention of Mrs. Moustache, that hussy. Although she has been spayed, apparently both she and they are unaware of it as they are partying all over the front yard. She's going to give us a reputation for running a cathouse.

Mrs. Moustache was absent at feeding time today and yesterday so Carmen is getting to eat all the food. She has matured into a beautiful animal, funny tail and all. Her face, once too small for her body, has filled out and she is much friendlier now. Maybe some day she will even let me pet her again.

Making new friends

Rupert, a would-be friend

Well, we’re back in Santa Rosalia without mishap in our travels. In San Diego at Junior Birdman’s house we discovered that Lupita likes cats. While she was napping in my lap, the Manx cat Rupert was overcome with curiosity and jumped up on the couch to get a better idea of what this intruder was. Lupita woke up immediately to the cat breath on her face and tried to French kiss Ru who had almost accepted her until then. Cole, the outside cat could see Lupita through the sliding glass doors. He was enraged and wanted to come in and kill her. When Ru went outdoors you could see him whispering in Cole's ear that it wasn’t worth it to be so hostile and to lighten up. Cole kept darting annoyed glances over his shoulder as the two of them walked away into the garden together.
Cole, a fiesty dog hater

Getting ready for our departure in San Diego we read Baja Insider’s road reports that the highway had been damaged in several places in Baja due to the heavy rains last week. We had some trepidations starting out. And though it’s true that the road had been cut by the storms, the bad places had been repaired or detours made. At San Vicente de Ferrer, south of Santo Tomas, traffic was normal though the road had been undercut. Just past that we saw extensive low lying areas where L.A. Cetto’s vineyards were standing in about 3 inches of water. I imagine those vines will not survive with that much water covering their roots for such a long period. Too sad. Between there and Colonet three washouts had occurred but all were repaired, temporarily, and traffic moved along fine. At San Vicente Guerrero, north of San Quintin there was a major washout of the ramp to the bridge and it looked like the bridge foundations were damaged as well. Traffic bypassed into the arroyo and moved normally. At El Rosario there was another major washout of the ramp to the bridge and traffic was diverted into the arroyo, but again was moving well. They are still constructing the southern part of that bridge. A lot of water had come down but no further problems were encountered on the way to Cataviña where we spent the night. We saw a lot of large ‘standing lakes’ of rainwater in the desert's flat areas all the way to Guerrero Negro where we crossed over of the peninsula.

Newly formed lakes in the desert

As we drove along we continued to wonder how Lupita would adjust to our other animals. After reading some internet advice, we decided to leave Lupita up in Casa Abeja (our here-to-date unoccupied house that we plan move into this month). Then we both went to Casa Boleo and spent a long time greeting Sweet Pickle and the cats before bringing Dash up to Casa Abeja to meet to Lupita. The minute Lupita saw Dash, she screamed and barked in a frenzy as though her life were about to end, and she was going to be eaten. Dash just stood around looking embarrassed. After about 5 minutes of this she finally realized she wasn’t going to die after all. We took Lupita (in her crate) and Dash back to Casa Boleo and set the crate on the living room floor so the cats could sort it out too. Frida wasn’t interested but Winnie was quite curious. After 5 minutes of crate time we let her out and Winnie kept coming over to her to sniff her. Frida was terrified of Lupita and hissed and growled at her. Every time Dash thought a cat/puppy altercation was going to occur he would step between the cats and Lupita. He was amazing.

Last night Dash lay snoring on the floor, the cats slept on top of me, and Lupita stayed under the covers near Esperando. I had worried that Frida who likes to chase hands that are under the covers might pounce her, but she knew exactly where that puppy was under the covers and kept her distance. At 3 a.m. out Lupita popped and crawled out to sit on my face, quite concerned about the sounds the seagulls were making in the harbor. Did you know they squall and squabble all night long? I thought birds went to sleep at night until we moved here. The thing about Lupita is that if she is worried by a noise you can’t just say, ‘oh, it’s fine, go back to bed.” No, she has to figure it out for herself and that can take hours. Frida was about a foot away from the emerged Lupita, and was handling that face-sitting better than I was until Lupita decided she needed to bark and growl at the seagulls right in front of Frida. So Frida left but came back later.

This morning Winnie is still completely fascinated with Lupita. They have touched noses multiple times except Lupita always blows it with the French kiss thing and when Winnie tries to leave Frida wants to smell his butt. He really thinks she is rude, but just bats her away gently, although as she gets more a aggressive his bats become more hard. Frida now ignores Lupita the best she can, but is no longer a serious danger. And Dash is becoming jealous. Fortunately, Dash has a lot of other admirers in the house to make a fuss over him and get him through this. As long as we can minimize toy throwing arguments and food robbery attempts we will probably make a go of it.

Packing up a princess for success

Lupita’s dedicated serving staff (Duena de la Casa and Esperando Esposo) are packing up her vittles and her chattels in preparation for her upcoming move to Mexico, the return to her “ancestral homeland” as the vet referred to the move just the other day when she gave Lupita a clean bill of health. Lupita now weighs 3.5 pounds, but her accumulated goods far exceed her tiny little self.

Lupita is flying with us in-cabin to San Diego on Friday where we will stock up our truck with food and other goodies for us humans and other pets before we start the drive down the Baja. We will spend the night with Junior Birdman, Esperando’s son, and acquaint Lupita with the concept of cats (he has two) before continuing on to Catavina for an overnight, then on to Santa Rosalia the next day.

Lupita’s chattels are many and take up more space than five Lupita’s would. First of all there are the pharmaceutical items: parasite medicine she continues to take for coccidia; Frontline for ticks and fleas; and Interceptor for heartworm. Then, there is the little pile of assorted small doggie clothes and her harness and leash, a whole folder of papers that includes her rabies certificate and health certificates for the airline. Besides all that there are assembled favorite toys and chewy sticks, her blankie, her carrier, her food and water bowls, a sufficient quantity of food to get her home, and Boulder Dog Food Company’s All Natural Turkey bits which make an excellent training treat that she will die for. More puppy food will be purchased in San Diego for the long drive down to Santa Rosalia.

Esperando and I are hoping sufficient suitcase room will be leftover for the two of us to bring back the items we brought up with us when we came, before there was ever a Lupita in our lives. My how life changes in the blink of an eye! We will need a small suitcase or perhaps a mini Louis Vuitton trunk just for Lupita’s stuff, although I wouldn’t want to encourage her spending patterns—she is already in way over her head. Good thing she is still too young to apply for credit cards.

What the well-dressed puppy is wearing these days

Let’s talk puppy clothes. I find it becoming sort of an addiction. I think deep down I must be really perverted to be dressing a little dog like a doll in tiny clothes. It started in El Paso when we were driving back to Denver, and I knew it would be cold there and in Taos. We bought Lupita a cute little pink cable knit sweater since we thought she might get cold. After we got back to Denver and she had the surgery for her abscess, the vet wanted her to wear a t-shirt to cover the sutures. I thought the protruding ends of the suture material might catch on the sweater and be irritating. Esperando offered up the cut-off ends of a long sleeve gun-metal gray t-shirt. It was a humble homemade article although the neck had a nice finished look, with the cuff turned back at her neckline. I must admit the gray color didn't do much for her complexion. She wore that for a week until someone at the Landrover dealer commented on her “grunge look” when I went to pick up my car for servicing. Hmmm? My dog looking grungy?! That was not to be! Off I went to Petsmart to peruse the doggie clothing and found some really hot little numbers. Now my dog is better dressed than I am.

She seems to like wearing clothes. That is, she obliging pokes her nose into the neck hole and stands still while I feed her little paws into the sleeves. She seems to actually prefer some clothes over others and is consistently more cooperative in putting those on. As I child, I used to dress my cat up in my doll’s clothes, so it’s almost like returning to some familiar state of mind. I got a bad enough time in Vancouver when I bought a doggie raincoat for Sweet Pickle. Since he is large and has lots of hair it saved me from using up multiple towels to dry him off everyday when we came in from walking in the rain and snow. A street reporter doing a special on doggie clothes snagged me on a corner and wanted to me to explain why a big dog like Dash needed to wear a jacket? So I had to tell him about the facts of life which caused Dash to be propelled onto public TV in a newscast. How embarrassing!

Lupita is more fortunate than some dogs in that she has the money to work on her fashionista collection. So far she has three sweater vests, a gray and pink hoody with Canine All-Star written across the back, a small doggie Harley Davidison t-shirt, a really cute Rock Star t-shirt with a sequined guitar on it, and a fuzzy purple fleece jacket that has the words Princess emblazoned across the back. Unfortunately she considers the jacket be more of a chew toy. I am afraid it won’t hold up well to that kind of treatment.

I have seen some street dogs in Santa Rosalia wearing clothes. We are talking about dogs much bigger than Lupita who live in a hot climate. Unfortunately they do not have a change of clothes, and what with lying around on the street, their clothes could often use a good wash. What a silly world!

Puppy power

I just put Esperando on the airplane to Korea where he will be working for the rest of the week. I was so happy when he was here this past weekend to catch up and have some help taking care of the new doglet. We keep wondering how the rest of our menagerie will adapt to Lupita, we are sure Sweet Pickle will be jealous, at least at first, but what will the cats do? We have been told that Chihuahuas want to be the dominant dog. As for the cats, Sour Pickle is not intimidated by much and is a pretty curious guy. I see photos of this but--do Chihuahuas and cats really get along well? I guess we will find out in a couple of weeks when we head back to Mexico.

After I dropped Esperando off at the airport, I went to physical therapy, and then ran a few errands before coming home. Lupita rode in her travel carrier in the car with me and basked in the sunshine when I went into therapy, and then again when I went into the store for a brief jaunt. It didn’t look as though she slept after I left her because every time I returned she was gnawing on the chewy toy that I left in the carrier with her. When I got home to take a nap she did her little snapping-turtle-under-the-covers routine, spinning around on her back and biting at various parts of my anatomy and clothing. She got more hyper and more hyper and kept trying to climb off the bed. I finally had to crate her in our bedroom to try and take my own nap. I laid there for the next 30 minutes wondering what she was doing. In the end I couldn’t sleep: I got up and released her. She had peed and pooped in the crate and then curled up on some bedding at the other end and was sleeping. I don’t know when this fouling up of her crate will end, at least this time she didn’t make much of a protest being put in there other than the physical evidence she deposited. I keep thinking this is either an anger thing or an anxiety thing and I don’t know how to deal with it.

After the aborted nap attempt, I decided it was time to take her for a walk around the park. Yesterday Esperando and I had a nice time walking with her. It took her about 10 minutes to seemingly understand wearing a harness and leash. One of us would walk in front and she would follow while the other held the leash. The walk we took is about a mile long and she must have walked almost half of it. We were pretty amazed such a little one could go so far. She seemed fairly tuckered out when we were done.

Today I did the same walk, but there was no Esperando to lead her while I walked in front. We had some difficulty moving forward and not fighting or dragging on the leash. A bicycle zoomed by and that freaked her out so badly I had to pick her up and carry her a good ways; more bicycles passed us, several in a row, and even though I was holding her she was terrified trying to climb up into the sleeve of my jacket. Once they passed by I put her down again and she walked fairly responsively for awhile, but she didn’t do as much walking as she had done the previous day. When we finally got near home she seemed to know where she was and had a conniption fit when I wouldn’t let her go up my neighbor's steps. I think she thought they were ours.

Finally she ran through our front door. She began to zoom around in circles and spent the next 3 hours literally racing around the house at 90 mph, upstairs, downstairs, through the living room, dining room and kitchen in circles, every once in a while, concerned she might need to pee I would open the back door and she would race around the backyard in circles. I don’t think I have ever seen so much continuous energy expended in my entire life by such a tiny creature except by hummingbirds. I was exhausted watching her. After she stopped doing circles, I threw the Trash Man doll, which is twice her size, and she must have retrieved him 50 times. If puppy energy could be stored we could solve all our electricity problems better than with oil, gas, wind farms, or hydroelectric power. Of course that would be a lot of puppies!