Cisco the Chihuahua

Cisco

It was during the month of June 1999 when we went over to Edgefield in response to an ad that had been posted in the Augusta Chronicle referring to Chihuahua puppies for sale, we had nothing to do, Nan Hee had expressed her desire for a Chihuahua puppy because someone had told her that they took away a humans asthma which she had been battling with since 1977. It was a long shot we knew, but worth a try considering all that had been done already by modern medicine and hadn't worked. Beside that, even though we had Candy our trusted, faithful friend that her and the kid's had rescued from the Richmond County Animal Control, Nanhee wanted a small puppy, more of a lap pet than Candy who was a beagle - schnauzer mix that couldn't get enough of the outdoors and literally lived outside.

So here we were in the middle of the country in Edgefield, South Carolina to find a Chihuahua puppy and what we saw broke our hearts. A litter of the cutest little Chihuahua puppies, their parents and grandparents all of whom were inside a small shabbily put together pen of chicken wire and 2 by 4's with a dog house just big enough for a medium size dog to fit into. All of the puppies were males so we had to pick the cutest of them and Cisco was the cutest. For a Chihuahua he was perfectly marked, fawn colored body with a white patch under his neck and a couple of white paws with perfectly shaped ears, tail and body. He had a small scar on his forehead that should have told us right away he'd be a digger but his enthusiasm for us and, his handsome features prevented us from seeing anything other than that and prevented us from stopping our hands from picking him up.

Well we paid the elderly man that was standing there his $200.00 and brought him back to the car with us. He was so small he fit right in the middle of Nan Hee's hand and it was love at first sight for her. She snuggled him all the way home where by the time we arrived she was already sneezing but so in love that it didn't matter to her. She knew she was allergic to him but it didn't matter, she wanted to hold him and pat him and make him her own, which she had also accomplished by the time we arrived at our house. Well as you can imagine Candy was there waiting for us, probably having dug out from somewhere along the fence line, gone to visit and make her rounds around the neighborhood and returned just in time for us to come home. When she smelled Cisco you could tell she was not unhappy rather she was elated. It seemed like she was greeting a long lost friend, licking him and sniffing, smelling and nudging him every which way but loose. When Nan Hee picked him up again and started to walk away she started whining and placing both paws up on Nan Hee's leg stopped her from going towards the back door of the house. So Nan Hee put Cisco down again and Candy as any mother would do, picked him up by the neck and took him into her plastic dog house on the back porch where she made him comfortable among her many blankets and pillows. After a while I reached in and removed Cisco from the inside of the dog house and she followed me to the back door sitting there whining as I closed the door and brought him inside. She barked a few times and then laid down to patiently wait for us to bring him back out to her. She somehow sensed that we wouldn't be able to stick to our original plan of keeping him inside with us.

Thus began a friendship for the decade, a wandering beagle-schnauzer mix and a purebred Chihuahua both of whom became our family members to a point that we talked to them, fed them and treated them as our children which is what we were lacking with our kid's having both flown the coop by 1995. But the companionship between Candy and Cisco was a sight to see. Every morning when I would let the back screen porch door open Candy would run out to do her business and Cisco's little legs would paddle and pump as fast as he could to catch up with her running to the back of the property to do her business. He watched her intently and mocked everything she did even squatting, mocked her in every other way for the remainder of his days. It wasn't unusual to find Candy digging a hole underneath the fence to get out allowing her to roam and wander around the sub-division and woodlands surrounding our house and after a while we had to watch very carefully because Cisco would have no trouble following her through the hole she'd dug, he could practically walk through them standing up he was so small at that point. He would do his best running along with her, sniffing and marking over her mark to prove it was his.

And as he grew he became his own dog, digging his own hole out and wandering through the woods but he always seemed to stay within sight and earshot of the back yard. He was extremely smart staying clear of bigger dogs, cars that came down the road and ended up backing up when they saw it was a dead end, and the inevitable hawks and vultures that flew overhead every day looking for breakfast, lunch and dinner or the owls that flew by night from the old farm barns behind our property. To this day I still haven't figured out how they missed him but they did, I suppose it was his uncanny ability to camouflage himself in virtually any area he was in. He could sink down on the ground and slither behind or under a bush or tree so you couldn't see him. In the woods behind our house he wood stand perfectly still when I was calling him and walking towards him causing me a few times to walk right by him not even seeing his fawn color or the outstanding white patch under his neck.

So with him firmly imbedded with Candy in her dog house on the back porch he became our second watch dog barking as Chihuahua's are known for seemingly at the sound of a gnat passing gas. He had the ears for hearing the slightest sound but the front door bell, car in the driveway, strange voice in the house would send him into an all out nine pound, nine inch long, four inch high sounding board of barking teeth and hair. The hackles would come up all the way down his back to where he looked like a fawn colored miniature razor-backed wild hog. His head would get low with his ears laid back, tail up straight and stiff and body wound tight, ready to strike anything up to standard knee height. He was ready willing and able to tear into anything that upset or seemed to upset or intrude on his territory. Protective as a pit-bull he would strut around the property prancing like a bantam rooster, ears up, tail up, chest stuck with his little legs pumping ground as fast or as slow as he needed to accomplish his mission of guarding his property. When it came to Candy you did not want to lay a hand on her or even look like you were going to do any harm to her that would again cause him to ready himself for an all out strike. To get him out of the dog house after they went in for the night was sometimes a tricky feat to accomplish as he would put himself way in the back, wrapped up in blankets with Candy in front. It took getting Candy out of the house then reaching in, finding the right blanket with him all curled up inside of it and pulling him out.

When NanHee's mother came for a visit from November 1999 to February 2000 she fell in love with Candy and Cisco, constantly checking on them and going out in the back yard to be with them. Candy brought joy to anybody she came into contact with and Cisco with his small stature and pugnacious manner of carrying himself endeared him to her also. She would go out in the yard to rake leaves or grass and both dogs would be right there with her, Cisco of course barking at whatever moved in the area and Candy watching mom's every move. When she left to go back to Korea both dogs missed her presence, which is an indicator of her gentleness and love for animals in my opinion.

Whenever the kid's would come home from school breaks or on leave from the military both Candy and Cisco would be elated. Dogs naturally take to kids unless they're trained otherwise and these two were no exception. The kid's were all grown now but still loved to get out and run around the backyard with them having Candy show them her latest efforts at digging out under the fence and my likewise efforts of filling it in and covering it up with whatever heavy objects I could find. Cisco just loved getting somebody to chase him and the longer you did it the faster and farther he'd run. His size and agility allowed him to turn on a dime while at a seemingly unreal speed which lead to the inevitable trip and flip, a move he perfected on a bright Sunday afternoon. Every Sunday or whatever other day I had off and we were not obligated to appointments, cleaning or other mundane tasks we made it a point to go for a ride sometimes alone but most of the time locally within a twenty mile radius of the house with both Cisco and Candy. The long bed of my Dodge Dakota pickup truck allowed Candy the freedom to run back and forth putting her paws up on the side with better form and pose than most surfers I've seen in Hawaii and California. She would windsurf for miles then sit for a few minutes to catch her breath only to get right back up on the other side of the truck.

Cisco would ride on the back of the bench seat right behind Nan Hee, leaning up against the back of her head for stability he would have his little head at the window which she only opened a couple of inches to allow him to perform his version of windsurfing. You could only leave it open a couple of inches because we were afraid he'd jump which was in his character to do to anything that threatened him or his surrounding turf. Well it finally happened that bright Sunday afternoon when we were riding down a long stretch of country road. We came around a corner right at about thirty miles per hour and there they were, fifteen or twenty beautiful Black Angus cattle shining in the sun and behold their master of the pasture, a huge bull right at the fence. Well wouldn't you know it, we were just close enough to the side of the road and I had slowed from fifty down to about thirty on the way to stopping, Nan Hee had started to roll down her window all the way having what she thought was a firm hold on Cisco when POP! Out of her hands he went, scrambling back up behind her on the seat back and out the window!!!!


Slamming on the brakes while he was still in the air caused Candy to fly back into the truck through the rear sliding window and Nan Hee to slam into the dash. He hit the ground, rolled and came up right in front of that big, black monster of the pasture barking and nipping like he was going to rip him to pieces. By the time I had gotten out of the truck and around to him he had taken his attack stance about two feet from the fence still barking at a volume too loud for him to produce. The bull just stood there looking down at this little fawn colored ant like creature making too much noise for its size. When Cisco realized I was beside him he turned it up and performed his signature move, where he'd half prance, half jump with his front legs stiffened up at whatever he was attacking. The bull backed up to my surprise but I knew he'd only back up once and, only so far before he decided to charge. When he'd had his fill of all the noise he did, backing up just a couple of feet he charged, stopping just short of the fence where he snorted so hard the air hit Cisco blowing him backwards and head over tail into the ditch. Nan Hee, Candy and I watched this Laurel and Hardy sketch for ten minutes until the bull got tired and meandered his large frame back up the slight hill into the pasture. Cisco also backed off sniffing the ground in the fence area, coking his leg to mark his territory and occasionally looking back over his shoulder to ensure the monster wasn't trying to creep up on him, uttering a low growl and occasional yip to ward off any ideas the bull had of trying.

The years went by and he became a force to be reckoned with for any animals that approached the backyard fence we had erected, or anything flying overhead. One day while mowing the front lawn with Cisco casually roaming around sniffing and marking the area, I noticed a large shadow pass overhead. Immediately looking up I saw a small animals nightmare, two large hawks were circling and one of them had spotted Cisco.
He was oblivious to the imminent danger above him and continued his sniffing and marking activities with the only care being if I would get to close to him with the lawnmower. I stopped mowing and was on my way to where he was marking a spot on the holly tree when I looked up to see one of the hawks bearing down on him. As the bird came in for the snatch Cisco must have sensed something bad was about to happen and looked back and over his left shoulder crouching just as the bird swooped past.
By the time I retrieved him from under the holly bush he was shaking, he looked at me as if to say, "Yo Esai, get me into the house quick, that was too close for my comfort." He was cowering in the cradle of my arms until I got him onto the back porch. As I put him down, he snorted as if to blow the stench of me off of him but also to establish his control over the area. He walked over to his water, lapped some up and gave me a dirty look. I always felt like he had saved me instead of me saving him because, if that hawk had have been successful I would not have been able to live with myself and, the look he was giving me seemed to tell me that.

He and Candy became closer as the years passed and he was always her little protector, letting his fiercest bark go if anybody or anything threatened her albeit from inside the doghouse or behind her. By now, she wouldn't roam the whole subdivision, she'd just dig out and head up the road to play with our neighbors toy Collies and Pomeranian she was sleeping more and becoming a little stiff. When she was fourteen we took a trip to Korea for one month to see the family leaving her with my sister and brother-in-law who lived not far from us. My sister would bring her back to the house every few days and let her wander the back yard, eventually leaving her there the week before we came home because Candy wouldn't come to her and kept running away and she was fighting with my sisters boxers. Our neighbors loved her and watched out for her everyday so my sister had no worries about her staying on her own. She stopped over every day to check on her and fill up her water bowls I had placed around the yard. She was stocked with food on the back porch which I had put a doggie door into for her by then. One day she came over and called to Candy who came out of the back door but just sat there looking at the woods with her ears up. When my sister called her she looked in her direction, wagging her tail but didn't move to come to her. As my sister approached her fearful that she may have contracted rabies or some other disease that made her fearful she realized Candy was blind. She had diabetes and we didn't know it had caused her to go blind.

When we came home Cisco was elated to see us as was Candy but he went straight to Candy and began licking her eyes. It was heart breaking to watch but showed us the powerful love and bond that develops between animals that grow together. Cisco seemed to lead her around in the morning to do her business, taking her to her favorite places in the yard then leading her back to the porch, and even though we had taken her to the veterinarian where he put her on daily shots of insulin, she was getting worse. Eventually her kidneys started to fail her, she was bumping into the back wall of the house, and twice she fell into the pool. We took her to the vet again who told me that she needed to be put down, I absolutely refused and brought her home, I couldn't do it. When we got home Cisco immediately went to her and gave me a look of disgust that I've never forgotten.
The following week she took a turn for the worst and I had to go through with it. When I brought her back home I placed her on the ground out back and combed her beautiful hair, removed her collar and wrapped her in her favorite blankets. My wife, sister and I were all sobbing and Cisco got loose from the back porch. He came over, sniffed Candy all over and seemed to stagger backwards a few steps where he fell back on his haunches and began to howl and cry in the most haunting sound I'd ever heard which increased our sorrow even more. For the next few weeks, he would trot out the back door in the morning and go to the back fence where Candy was laying in her final resting place. He would sniff all around the area, walk a few feet away, do his business then sit down and look around or down at her grave.

Nan Hee's allergies had subsided over the years, still popping up during different times of the year but had been brought under control more or less with good doctors. Cisco coming into the house brought some sneezing and stuffiness back but, there was no choice in the matter, he was destined for the in doors from now on. A few months after Candy left us our son brought home a beautiful white with brown patches Havanese puppy that was hypo allergenic who my wife immediately fell in love with and Cisco despised. Our son brought Cisco to his home with him and left us with the rolling, playful snowball with brown patches. He was very good to Cisco, buying him his own car seat that was placed and strapped into the front seat, sitting up high enough that when Cisco was sitting or standing-up he could be seen by other drivers. I always jokingly teased my son about being a big, bad U.S. Marine with a Chihuahua riding shotgun to which he would reply; "That's ok Dad, let somebody stick their hand in that window to get a taste of a well trained U.S. Marine Chihuahua!" Cisco being full of pride sat up straight and rode tall and true over the next three years while we moved to Northern Virginia where my job took me.

When we moved back here to Georgia we brought Cisco and Mocha the Havanese back with us where they both enjoyed the spacious back yard and large house. Cisco taught Mocha everything that Candy had taught him but Mocha didn't take to digging like they did electing to stay close to mom and dad in the house. Cisco went back to his old ways immediately after we arrived back home, digging out under the fence some place to go exploring, ever mindful of the dangers around him especially from above now. Then it happened, one day he didn't come home. We waited into the night, searching the back yard with flashlights, calling his name, wandering through the woods looking for him everywhere. After three days we were about to give up hope having scoured the woods for signs of a struggle, tracks or something that would give us a clue to where the little bugger had gotten to when the phone rang one afternoon, it was the veterinarian up in the center of our small town, she asked us if we still owned a Chihuahua named Cisco to which I replied; "Yes we do, please tell me he's alright, he's been missing for a few days now."
The vet was very nice and concerned as she told me where he was located and if he needed any medical attention to give her a call back. As I hung up my wife was standing there with a look of pure fear and panic written all over her face; "What? What? Was that the vet, where is he, do they have him?" I couldn't do anything but stand there and look at her with this look of disbelief on my face. "No they don't have him, the owner of a house on Quail Run Drive has him. He's been there for 3 days!" Now you have to close your eyes and imagine this picture. First picture yourself looking from a back yard into a wooded area through a chain link fence. Beyond the chain link fence you can see the strands of rusted barbed wire of an old farm and beyond those strands, through scrub oak, water oak and Georgia Pine trees you can see the remnants of an open cow barn. To the right of the cow barn more dense scrub brush, water oaks and dense pine trees.

Quail Run Drive is the next road down from our subdivision, approximately three quarters of a mile away. It is not a subdivision but has homes with anything from .10 acres to 3 acres of land per home. At the end of the road is a nice cape style home with a covered car port and a chain link fenced in yard where a full size female Chihuahua and a friendly black Labrador Retriever live in relative peace. That is until the baddest Chihuahua that has lived on the planet shows up and begins a three day vigil of digging, snorting, urinating and general stalking of the female Chihuahua that has just come into heat. When I arrived at the house, pulling up in the driveway I could see the dogs in the fenced in area of the yard but could not see Cisco. I got out of my Ford Taurus and walked towards the fence when the owner came out of the house to greet me. She was an older woman, dressed very nice and had a big smile on her face. She introduced herself and told me he'd been there for three days fighting off other dogs and prancing back and forth like a bantam rooster. I couldn't see him so I asked her where he was to which she replied; "Come with me, you're not going to believe this."

When we went around to the left side of the fence, walked down the fence line about 200 feet there he was in a small hole he had dug for himself to stay cool. He laid there panting with his tongue hanging out, slapping his tail in the dirt, ears pricked up, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He was filthy! I looked at him and said; "CISCO, where have you been? Have you been harassing these nice people?" He looked at me and took off for the fence where his newfound flame was running back and forth, barking and yelping for her owner to give her some attention, as if she needed it, she'd been getting plenty of attention from Don Jose Elwardo Pancho Villa, a.k.a.Cisco the Wandering Casanova Chihuahua.

I finally caught him and put him in the air-conditioned car, I paid my respects to the owner and furnished her with our telephone number for the future incidents I knew would be coming and we drove off for home. When I brought him back Nan Hee was elated as was Mocha and everybody else in the neighborhood. But like us they couldn't believe this little fawn stud could make it through that much woods, loaded with owls, hawks, possums, raccoons, coyotes wild dogs and snakes and still be moving. Cisco didn't try to tell any of us either, he was exhausted and after he'd had his fill of food and water he crawled into the dog house, wrapped himself up in some blankets and went off into a blissful deep sleep where I'm sure he was dreaming about his new found flame and all the fun they'd had together during the past few days.
But I was wrong, because the next morning he hit the back fence and was gone off to his chica again. We watched him go out to do his business, sniffing throughout the backyard like he was doing something important and he was, he was eyeing his next escape route. After several passes back and forth on the far side of the swimming pool he made a beeline for the pool pump area where he performed his business. After this he came trotting back to the back porch, drank his fill of water, sniffed his bowl for any scraps that may have been left behind and caught us watching him through the back door. He played it cool though, he went back and lay down as if he was going back to sleep in the sun. We moved our location and continued to watch him and it only took about ten minutes for him to feel comfortable. He crept real slow, he left the back porch and stood there for a minute as if he was listening for sounds or movement coming from inside or around the front of the house.

His route was not straight but it wasn't crooked either taking him along the wood pile, he then cut across the path the lawn mower had made from dumping the compost materials, next he was behind the small tool shed where he popped out from behind it and low crawled along the chain link fence until he got to his escape hole. I thought to myself, he must have watched the Great Escape or Hogan's Heroes too many times. Before I could get out the back door he was into the woods and gone. He was so small he could hide under fallen pines, branch piles and under leaf piles. Even though I saw and knew the exact spot he went out, my search revealed no Cisco. So I jumped into the Ford Taurus and headed for Quail Run. When I pulled up into the drive I could see no other vehicles so I knew I was alone. I half walked, half ran to the end of the chain link fence that housed his girlfriend and the Lab, I thought Good, he isn't here yet. So I made myself comfortable against a short pine facing the fence. It only too about fifteen minutes before I noticed him come sniffing his way through the underbrush and out onto the path coming out of the woods. He walked right past me not even noticing me sitting there leaning against the tree. He ran right for the fence line where his girlfriend came running over and after several minutes of greetings seemed to be looking right at me. I know she had to say something to him because all of a sudden he turned real fast and noticed me sitting there under the tree. He came over to me crouching lower and lower as he approached, wagging his tail and panting like he'd just run a five-mile marathon. After I scolded him, I told him to go say good-bye to Senora Floozy because he was going home and he wasn't coming back. He went to the fence and I finally had to pick him up and take him with me albeit to the very loud protests of his most recent fling.

The episodes finally ended when she moved away which happened very suddenly. One day he disappeared and I drove over to get him. I found him at his favorite spot near the path where it exited the woods and met the chain link fence. He was sitting there looking as sad as a Chihuahua could look. I could tell his heart was broken; his flame had run off with her masters and the lab leaving him lonely and broken. We got into the car and he put his paws up on the back seat as we drove away, looking back at the house.

He finally settled down and stopped braving the wilds of the woods settling for long leisurely walks around the big fenced in back yard. He explored every nook and cranny of the area and became very adept at finding moles, voles and other pests that would eat the roots of our plants in the garden. He loved lying up on the hot cement by the pool in the summer, then disappearing under the deck into the shade. That is until he went under there one day and got chased out by a female mother rabbit that had her litter under there and wasn't taking any boarders.

He taught Mocha everything he'd ever learned from Candy and it became a full time job trying to keep Mocha from practicing these little tricks. Occasionally we would take extended trips to Korea leaving Mocha and Cisco with my sister and brother in law. Then in 2014 we went on our trip to Korea and my sister explained to me that she could take Mocha but not Cisco. My brother in law wanted nothing more to do with him it seemed and my sister let me know that his episodes of urinating in the house and being less than friendly to her two dogs were out of hand. So we went to a friend of our sons, that had just moved back into the area with his new bride from the west coast. She was a heaven sent gift as she had been a vet technician for the past fifteen years and they had a hobby farm in the back yard. SO we took Mocha and Cisco over to introduce them and see what turned up. They had a Great Dane, three boxers, two pot bellied pigs and a whole fenced in area in the back with goats, ducks, pigs, chickens, and rabbits. So they felt right at home in the big area with Cisco acerting his power immediately by taking over the crate and bed the Great Dane slept on. The dog stands over six feet three inches tall on his hind legs and was deathly afraid of Cisco.

When we returned after a month and one week Byron and Liz both said that Cisco had been great, and quite comical to watch as he slowly but surely gathered everybody around him and let them each know he was the boss, even the two pigs. But his episodes were getting worse Liz said and she informed us that we might want to get him looked at for dementia as he had been found quite a few times just sitting staring at the wall. We told her we had also observed this behavior and she said it was a classic sign in dogs that something was going on that shouldn't be. So we took him to the old country vet we usually went to and he confirmed the fact that Cisco was suffering from puppy altziemer's. It wasn't really noticeable all the time especially in the morning. We'd come downstairs and he'd run out the back door, jumping from the threshold real high and landing halfway out onto the rug near the back door. Then once the door was opened he'd run out into the back yard and find his spot to do his morning constitution. But in the afternoon he'd slow right down and you could see him just laying in his little doghouse looking at us or staring at nothing. Or he'd sit up and stare at the bricks on the fireplace for hours.

This lasted almost a year in which he went very fast, losing all of his muscle tone in his back legs, he became very stiff in his back legs with arthritis, he developed cataracts and drank water like a Saint Bernard. It became a nightmare waking up in the morning and coming downstairs to several areas of urine and feces. And he started to attack the Havanese every time he wanted something. If the Havanese were drinking water he'd go over and bark and snap at him to get him to move out of the way. He'd Bogart his way in to take his food from him, never really eating it; he'd just sit there guarding it so the Havanese couldn't get to it.

It was three days after Christmas 2015 we noticed that he hadn't eaten anything for breakfast and his stool was yellow water. I rushed him into the vet who told me that his kidneys were gone as was his colon and he probably had cancer. We had him on the table and the old vet looked at me and told me that I had done the best I could, he had a great life with a great set of parents that gave him all the love they could for 17 years but he was in a lot of pain and was suffering. It wasn't right to hang on to him anymore.

It's never easy saying goodbye to a friend when it's their time to go and for me its even worse when it's a four-legged friend. He looked at me with those big dark eyes and I reached form him. As I cradled him the vet gave him the shot and he looked at me one last time, licking my cheek. I could hear him say; "Thank You Esai, I'm going to go find Candy now. We'll be home for supper."



So it's been almost two months since Cisco departed for a better home, leaving us with so many wonderful memories and pictures of him. He's just on the other side of the fence right next to Candy. Every once in a while I can go out back and hear their collar bells jingling in the back yard. I know they're there because the Havanese who is now totally blind will stand in one place and listen for a long time, tilting his head from side to side, then he'll take off running like he can see, for the back fence.