Sunday, October 4, 2009

Koala Bears? In San Carlos?


My wife, Wendy, goes on a lot of hikes with our dogs. Counting our daughter Lindsey's dog, Mummers, it becomes a pack of three dogs. Our dogs range in size from 8 pounds on up to almost 70. I've written about Sammy before. Sammy being a Pekingese, is the smallest of the group and is also the oldest, approaching 14 years of age. Sammy can't keep up with the rest and certainly can't go the distance the other dogs can go so Sammy gets to ride along in a pouch that Wendy wears.

In this photo, at a local pet supply store, Wendy can be seen carrying Sammy in his pouch and our largest, Buddy, is sitting at her feet.

I've heard before that the Star Wars ewoks were modeled on a combination of Pekingese dogs and koala bears but I have no idea if that's true or not.

Anyway, back to the story, Wendy hikes about town and some of the trails on an almost daily basis all the while carrying Sammy and keeping Buddy and Mummers under control.

During the past week she has been stopped at least a dozen times by people who wanted to see "the lady with the koala bear." A road construction crew stopped work completely in order to walk over and see the "bear", people have turned their cars around to have a good look as well.

The biggest problem with Sammy is that he is disarmingly cute. He doesn't like much of anyone, other than Wendy, or anything, other than cats. When people see his "cute, little face" they want to get close and that's a dangerous thing to do. You decide, Pekingese or Koala Bear?