Mutts

Today I spoke with a man who owned more than twenty dogs.  Several years ago, he explained, a friend gave him two little purebred Chihuahuas.  The dogs worked will as alarms, but one problem was that they would routinely sneak out the front gate, disappear for several days, and then return home tired and pregnant.  The man never had the heart to kill the puppies; he keeps them all, instead, storing the smaller ones in several large cages behind his house and allowing the larger ones to roam free around the property.

Leaving his house, I felt like all I could see were Chihuahua-street dog mutts.  They were everywhere.  One was sleeping under the car.  Another was moping around in the driveway.   A third one followed my translator and me almost all the way to the gate, eventually leaving us to join the fourth and fifth dogs (his brother?) as they chased a group of chickens around the yard.