by Jae Baeli

Created on: December 02, 2008

Peso, the Wonder Runt

I tried ads in the Gazette, word of mouth, cardboard signs on the telephone posts along the road, and a great deal of pleading to friends and relatives, but no matter what I did, I could not seem to rid myself of him.

Peso, the Wonder Runt, was an ancient, (age undetermined) chihuahua (pronounced cha-hooey-hooey in the South) which I acquired quite by mistake at a garage sale, having found him cleverly hidden in a pretty yellow breadbox with a daisy on the side, which I had purchased for the grand sum of fifty cents.

All admiration for the garage seller's shrewdness aside, I was at once dismayed by this gift, and even more overwrought when I discovered that the scrawny little dog was not only hairless, but toothless, deaf as a rock, and in a certain trajectory toward incontinence. These drawbacks were not balanced by any redeeming character traits, but rather, further compounded by the little bugger's penchant for attacking innocent passers-by. This feature could have been utilized to some degree (perhaps only if the passers-by were pygmies) but the fact that Peso lacked teeth made his displays of territorial aggression merely an exercise in futility.

He would set about snapping at and biting the heels and ankles of the aforementioned passers-by, and succeed only in gumming them to the point of irritation-somewhat like a fly which has been caught in the house and makes its swan song a series of kamikaze attack maneuvers designed to stupefy its victims with mild distraction.

Peso also suffers from the popular small dog illusion that he is a big dog. This myopic mentality led to his near demise one afternoon when he decided it his duty to attack a self-centered Chow who dared set foot on his turf. The Chow made short work of him and Peso came away from the skirmish with a lacerated neck. Since that day, he has had a bit of respiratory distress and tip-toes about the house wheezing and hacking like a great-grandfather with emphysema.

Add to this menagerie of mayhem his unusual affinity for providing a taxi service for fleas, and a tendency to urinate on the floor in the middle of the night while I am asleep, which often resulted in my discovery of the action via my socked feet, and the picture becomes complete.

Though the solution seemed to indicate it was necessary for me to commit canine homicide, I was not equipped with the dispassionate sensibility to accomplish the deed.

For these reasons, I wish to find a sympathetic soul who will take Peso off my hands.

And kill him.

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