Thursday, September 29, 2011
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Thursday, September 29, 2011 |
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Community | Obits | Editorial & Columnists | Society | Sports | Education | Classified Ads | Calendar of Events | Features | Newsbriefs | Legals | Archives | Subscriptions | New Photo Gallery |
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Close to Nowhere Rare, solid black ... I made the most amazing discovery about my long-haired Chihuahua last week at “The Big One” flea market at the Ag-Center in Memphis, Tenn. We’ve had Foxie for about three years or so now. She’d been running up and down Hwy. 310 for a couple of weeks. One of our neighbors, on the other end of our section of 310, had tried to catch her for a week or so – maybe that’s why Foxie had traveled down to our end of the highway. It was raining when we finally caught the little black dog. Actually, “we” didn’t catch her. Our late, lamented boxer Girl Puppy chased her home and she had hidden under daughter Dana’s front porch for several days. There is only a tiny opening, so Dana finally put huge gloves and a massive coat with the hood tied around her face on oldest granddaughter Meredith and she crawled under the porch to get the non-stop barking “creature.” As soon as Mere picked up the dog, she immediately quit barking, etc. and turned into a totally affectionate little thing – except with men. It took her a long time to realize that “men” weren’t going to hurt her. We figured she’d been abused and then maybe tossed out by a guy. We took her to the vet after a few days of looking for an owner. She only weighed four pounds and you could feel every bone in her body. You couldn’t see bones, because she has beautiful, thick, fluffy, long, black fur. A couple of shots and some vitamins from Dr. Smith and in a week or two, she was gaining weight and confidence. She now rules the house! We looked up breeds of dogs and after a couple days’ research decided she was a long-haired Chihuahua. We’ve stuck with that idea until last weekend. I was at cousin Kathy’s booth talking (her booth is directly under the skylight and she has the neatest stuff!) when a college student came by to look around. She was holding Foxie’s identical twin! Of course, I had to talk to her and she said that her dog was a registered Pomeranian. I was floored. Her male dog didn’t look anything like the pictures I’d seen of Poms. We talked about the differences between solid black Poms and solid black Chihuahuas and she showed me some differences between the two breeds. Foxie had all the Pom characteristics. As soon as I got home, back to the computer for more research. After watching several videos on YouTube.com of Poms and Chihuahuas, I was stunned, amazed and convinced. Instead of being a rare black long-haired, Chihuahua, Foxie is an even rarer, solid black Pomeranian. What are the chances you’re going to find an abandoned rare breed of miniature dog trying to live in the wilds of rural Mississippi? Oh, and in case you didn’t know, the third weekend flea market in Memphis is no longer at the fairgrounds near the Liberty Bowl. I tried to pull into that parking lot, which was jammed with folks going to see the Memphis University football game (Tiger Lane looks like a really neat place to tail-gate!). The puzzled parking attendants had no idea about any flea market. Twenty-thirty years ago, my mother-in-law and I went to that flea market every month. She loved them (so do I). Twenty-thirty years ago, I couldn’t have Googled “The Big One” on my iPhone and discovered that the flea market had moved out to the Ag-Center at Shelby Farms. The sad thing is – I knew that. It was worth the drive to get to see Kathy and make the amazing discovery that my solid-black, long-haired Chihuahua is actually a solid-black Pomeranian. She seems like an entirely different dog now! (Oh, yeah — 86 days to Christmas) |
     
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