Happy Tails
Send in the Clowns — Bosley and Chi Chi
Missing their beloved toy poodle, Lacey, who’d perished a month
previously in a traffic mishap near their home, Sarah L. and two of her four children, Emily and Noah (Matt and Josh were not with them at the time), were having a bout of the blues one day. 
They decided to alleviate the loneliness they were feeling by
visiting the nearby Woodbury Petco and play with the Pet Haven Adoption Day pooches on parade there.
Sarah, a fan of the diminutive breeds, naturally was drawn to a brown-and-white Chihuahua named Chi Chi. Meanwhile, Noah was receiving a lick bath from Bosley, a super-lively, mostly black-haired poodle-y/schnauzer-y/terrier-y blend.
The trio went home that day to weigh their options. Sarah completed the adoption application online and was asked if she’d consider adopting both approximately 1-year-old dogs. As it turns out, both Chi Chi and Bosley had been foster home mates for a time and already knew each other. She figured it at least warranted another visit to see in person how the dogs got along, so she agreed to meet with the foster parents and the pups at South St. Paul’s Petco.
“It was run, run, run—a tangle of leashes and happiness,” Sarah said with delight. “They’d just rip and run while the adults stood there looking astonished. … All you could see was one ball of puppy. You couldn’t tell where one started and the other one ended.”
She knew she had better start seriously working on her husband now. Fortunately, however, convincing Steve wasn’t too troublesome. “I happen to think I’m alpha [in our household],” she explained.
Two days later, the family expanded, adding the patter of eight more tiny feet.
“We just love all that energy and interaction” smaller dogs bring, she said. “And these dogs actually know how to fly.” Apparently, they run up the backs of chairs, give a bunch of kisses to whoever is within tongue’s reach, then leap off into the air and start the process all over again. Emily recently dressed Chi Chi in a cape and he did a marvelous Superman imitation.
Since their adoption on May 17, which now happens to be both dogs’ official birth date, these two rambunctious rabble rousers have gone swimming, camping in a cabin, played tag with their humans and perfected the art of getting completely immobilized together, tangled up in each other’s leashes along their backyard dog run. (Sarah said a fence will soon be installed to avoid any serious mishaps.) “They’re a couple of clowns.”
Chi Chi, in particular, is a slapstick performer extraordinaire. They’re each on two six-foot leashes and wearing harnesses. Sarah said, “Chi Chi will run to the end of his tether, where he abruptly stops dead, flies in the air and comes straight down on his back. It’s exactly like a cartoon!”
[I’m seeing the hapless dog in those “Foghorn Leghorn” episodes, aren’t you?]
Poor thing cries when he falls, so you know it hurts. “I know it’s wrong to laugh,” she said, “But it’s so darned funny!”
© 2008 Sid Korpi