Louie Makes A Friend

Memorial Day weekend 2007.

We had a small cookout on Sunday and Louie made a new friend. My mother brought her dog, Princess, who is a total mutt. She supposedly has some Chihuahua in her, but it doesn't really look like it.

Mom and Princess live in Westborough on nine acres of land, where she runs free, chases deer and hunts snakes. The dog, not Mom. The dogs had a great time wrestling and chasing each other around. Princess has a couple of inches and a few pounds on Louie, but he put up a noble effort. He would rear back on his hind legs and she would just drive him into the ground over and over again. Fred and I noticed a definite deficiency in his technique, but he had a great time hanging out with another dog.

AKA Wrasslin' Louie

Louie In The Yard

Louie loves being in the yard, almost as much as he loves laying in bed. When we set him loose, on the grass, and he's done racing his 40 laps around the flagpole, he finds all the sticks on the lawn and chews them into tiny little bits. In the two and a half weeks we've had him, our yard is now completely stick free. We might find a twig here and there, but if the chihuahua/greyhound finds it before us, forget it.

Louie and I have almost perfected fetch: it's called throw. On the rare occasion I can find a piece of wood worthy of tossing, he dances around in circles like a circus dog on his back feet, going crazy until I throw it. Once I toss it, he grabs it and runs to the far corner of the yard and turns it into mulch. Okay, we've got half of the equation down. We just need a little more work on the bringing it back part.

When there are no more sticks to munch, he turns to Robin's weeding pile. As she putters in the yard, pulling up roots and putting them into piles, Louie is on the prowl. He snatches the weeds stealthily and runs off to tear them up in the back corner of the yard. The above pictures come from Robin picking Lilacs from the garden.

AKA: Landscaping Louie

This Is What Happens When You Leave A Cashmere Sweater On The Bed

Obi-Wan-ChihuahuaAKA: Jedi Louie

"These aren't the 'droids you're looking for."

Louie Goes to The Races

Today was race day for Louie. Petco is sponsoring the 3rd annual Chihuahua races in fifteen cities across the country. First prize is a paid trip to San Diego to race in the finals. Everyone's seen the video, so we know Louie is quick. Today he was dubbed "Fast Louie."

Robin, Louie and I got an early start at 8:30 this morning. Robin wanted to leave even earlier but I figured that there wouldn't be more than a couple dozen Chihuahua's, so it shouldn't be too crowded. They can't be that popular, could they?

This is what we arrived to see at 9:oo. By the time registration was done at 10:00 there were more than 160 Chihuahua's registered to race.

These were 5 of the smallest ones we saw there. Surely, Fast Louie would get the drop on these weaklings.

The starting line. There were 16 heats of 10 dogs racing at a time. We raced in heat 8.

We decided that I would be the one releasing him, and Robin would encourage him to come to her. It's 30 feet. This is going to be a piece of cake. A couple of races and we're going to San Diego.

The race starts.

And Fast Louie is off...

This is how far he got, about 3 feet from the starting line. And then stopped. He was far too busy wooing the lady doggy lined up next to him to think about racing and a trip to southern California. All the dogs seemed too distracted with socializing to even think about anything. The first place winner eventually wandered over the finish line a few minutes after it began. Not exactly lightning quick.

If this race was held in my backyard we'd be on our way to San Diego. Oh well, there's always next year. Until then, Distracted Louie, we're going to work on FOCUS.

Crazy Louie

Louie Gets Dressed

Coming Home