Crabby’s Magical Power to Conjure

Compare the old Waggin’ Wagon stickers to the new ones, selected and purchased by Crabby:

The Original Stickers

The New Stickers

Now, think back if you will to the many, many adventures of the Run A Muck Ranch dogs, camping with Crabby, Sunday Family Desert Walks, Rental Dogs, etc.   When have you ever seen, with the exception of Slugger’s entry into the 2012 Arizona’s Favorite Dog Contest (which he won, incidentally), any of the kids leashed?

OK, go back to the Waggin’ Wagon photos and see if you notice anything ‘unusual’.

Need a hint?

Remember, Crabby claimed the leashed dog, #13 on the new series,  represented all the dogs who came before, and who are forever in our hearts.   I said at the time I didn’t realize Crabby could be so metaphorical.  I’ve known the man 20 years, been married to him 18 of them, and I can’t think of a single time when he communicated anything so poetic.  Indeed, usually his communications are a series of grunts and clicks that took years for me to begin to understand.

The new stickers were given to me on June 20, the day after I aged yet another year.

On June 25, this happened:

The photo of Gertie and Pablo posted to Facebook after they had been left for several hours, tied to a tree at a McDonalds.

Here’s the thing about Pablo:  He’s a runner.  No, it’s not that he’s a runner, it’s more that he’s a chaser.  Birds, bats, rabbits, squirrels, if it can be chased, whether it’s on the ground, in a tree or in the air, he wants at it.  The object of Pablo’s pursuits doesn’t even have to be in our yard.  If a hawk flies across the horizon, Pablo wants at it – badly.   And if he’s on a mission to chase something, he goes completely deaf to any words uttered by mere humans.

Pablo will circle a tree for hours if there’s a bird in it.

Pablo got loose from the back yard one evening, and in his pursuit of, I think a lizard, I never actually saw what it was, he ran right through the weep holes of the wall surrounding a neighbor’s back yard.  With great embarrassment, I had to knock on the door of a home whose residents I’ve never met (Hey, in our defense, a 6 foot cinder block wall isn’t that easy to chat over!), explain that one of our dogs went through the weep hole into his yard, and is now terrorizing any small desert creature that might dwell there.

More awkward was going in to the back yard where 2 women were standing, jaws dropped, staring in shock at a crazed Chihuahua mix darting at the speed of light between trees and bushes, flushing out masses of  bunnies,  quail, squirrels and lizards, who then ran in terror, much like the citizens of Tokyo fleeing Godzilla.   It was chaos.    Apparently the human residents were quite fond of the wildlife residing in their back yard, and were not pleased with the menace to their tranquility wreaking havoc amongst the woodland creatures.

Pablo was a meteor in a new solar system,and I didn’t have the technology to catch him.  My calls fell on deaf ears.  Hot dogs thrown like stop sticks in front of him had no effect.  It wasn’t until nearly 1/2 hour later, when Crabby came to my aid, and after a time, we were able to corner Pablo in an area where I was able to grab him.

And that’s when he gets loose.

The only thing Pablo has been able to catch so far is his own tail.

Walking Pablo on a leash is not a fun task either.  If he sees something worth chasing, he’s after it.  He charges so fast he sometimes goes air born, doing a somersault before crashing to the ground when he reaches the end of a 6 foot leash.  You would think after a few times he would learn.  Nope.  Pablo is all dash and crash when given more than a foot of slack on a leash.  All other Run A Muck Ranch dogs were trained to go off leash using a long line.  There is no doubt in my mind that trying the same thing with Pablo would end with vertebral damage or a broken neck if he’s given more than 6 feet to get his speed up.

Where Gertie is already working off leash, on the desert, Pablo isn’t even allowed to go out to the desert!  If he got loose, he’s gone. We stay leashed and in the confines of our street which is bordered by fences and walls.  Where all other dogs, past and present, foster and permanent, were always given the opportunity to prove their trustworthiness, and we were always rewarded with dogs who could work off leash, we don’t ever see giving Pablo the same chance.  No, the only safe Pablo is a leashed Pablo.

 

Pablo is pretty happy with the circumstances.

So, see if you follow my train of thought here:

a)  Crabby has never had a poetic or metaphorical thought a day in his life.  Chances are, he like me, still carries Maude close.  We both slipped several times stating 13 dogs months after she passed.  I believe the ‘slip’ occurred again when Crabby designed the stickers, and the 13th dog was an error.  The metaphorical explanation was back pedaling when he realized what he had done.

b)  Crabby presented  the stickers to me for my birthday.   5 days later, Crabby cut Gertie and Pablo from the tree and brought them home.

c)  Not many people line up to adopt a snarky, bitey, 6 year old Chihuahua mix, and Pablo isn’t improving.  In other words, we figured it out early on we were stuck with him.

d) The chances of Pablo ever seeing the outside world off leash – slim to none.  Pablo weighs 10 pounds wet.    The 13th dog sticker is a small leashed dog.

e) In procuring a sticker of a small, leashed dog, the leashed part being so out of character for Run A Muck Ranch, Crabby sent a call out to the cosmos for a real dog for which the sticker would be representative.   Enter Pablo, a few days later.

FACT:  If Crabby had ordered stickers truly representative of the Run A Muck Ranch dogs, i.e. 12 (Twelve) loose dogs, Pablo wouldn’t be here, and by association, neither would Gertie.  Crabby wanted a small, leashed dog, and sent out word to the cosmos.  The answer was Pablo.