Rita was a Chihuahua. She was a beautiful specimen of the breed, what they called a "toy" with an "apple-head" and almost perfect comformation. She had delivered many litters of near-perfect puppies that fetched a pretty penny in the 1950s dollars. She belonged to my Aunt Essie who, along with Uncle Jimmy, was "Elliot's Chihuahuas"; a name that had some note to it in the Chihuahua world. (One of her more famous dogs, rat-sized at full growth, was named Ollie and was featured in a nationally syndicated photo perched in a champagne glass.) When Rita became too old to breed she was kept as a pet and enjoyed a life of ease as a "house-dog".

Some of my earliest memories are of Rita. Snuggling up to sleep with me every night. She was my buddy. She got peed on many a night but still loved me and insisted on sleeping under the covers with me. She followed me everywhere; she sat on my lap when I sat, she watched me play, she comforted me when I cried, and tried to defend me from the spankings when they came. In every way, Rita was a perfect companion for a three-year-old.

Aunt Essie lived in a housing area we called the "projects" in Linda Vista. There was some rule about how many dogs you could have but they managed to evade problems with that even though there were at least thirty full grown-dogs in the kennel at any one time and about the same number of puppies in the "nursery". Uncle Jimmy had built a shack in the back yard to house them. The house was up on concrete pilings; no foundation and no slab, like many houses in Southern California in the forties and fifties. I used to get in "big dutch" for crawling under the house. The back porch was three or four steps up from ground-level and on one afternoon it seemed like the perfect platform to teach Rita how to fly. I have no memory of why I thought she needed to learn to fly, or why I thought I was qualified to teach her. But I picked her up and threw her off the porch, commanding her to fly. The measure of her loyalty and understanding of her human pup was the fact that after each unsuccessful flight attempt, she came back to me. I can't help but wonder if she really wanted to succeed just to make me happy. On the last unsuccessful launch she landed badly and came up yowling and walking funny, her right front leg sticking straight out to the side. I didn't want to hurt her, but I really didn't want Aunt Essie to hurt me. So I tried to put the leg back the way it belonged. Rita didn't care for that idea much; she shrieked. And licked my face, maybe trying to distract me from my medical ministrations. Anyway, Essie came out and saw what was going on...and she shrieked...so I shrieked, too. We all stood there for a few seconds shrieking and crying and me trying to explain to Essie that Rita tried to fly off the porch and Essie, not buying that at all, grabbed Rita up and took off for the vet, I went off to find a hole small enough to crawl into that I could pull in after me.

Rita came home later with a huge cast on her leg. As soon as Essie put her on the floor, she (Rita, not Essie) ran to me thumping like Ahab on the deck of the Pequod, and licked my face and neck. She slept with me that night like nothing had ever happened, I peed on her like nothing had ever happened, and she shook it off and curled up on the dry side...like nothing had ever happened. I wish the grown-ups had been as understanding and forgiving, but alas, they weren't. Writing this now I still feel the shame I felt that day. I loved that dog and she loved me. That's all there is to that.

MamieLady just got a little puppy, a beautiful Pom/Chihuahua mix about three months old, a fluffy little red-fox-looking puppy complete with a cast on his broken right front leg, obtained during a free-fall from the original owners' three-year-old's arms. They chose to name him "Jasper" (despite excellent suggestions from Grandpa...like "Tripod" or "Ahab"). He is a sweet, loving little guy who is in a home that will provide him all the love that four (soon to be five) little people can provide. He is a real Rita-quality pup. So this one's for you, Jasper.