So, taken together, the Lesser Weevil and the Weevil I Know Nothing Of, would in combination make a fairly formidable and vigilant guard dog, which is what Blondie had in mind when convincing me to take the Lesser Weevil away from a life of neglect and near-starvation, chained to a post in a low-rent backyard. Blondie and were being totally soft, and deeply vulnerable to the appeal of the tiny and cute when the Weevil I Knew Nothing Of was offered to us.

The Weevil I Know Nothing Of is now formally christened “Spike”, and one of the things I now know is not to let the little wretch eat canned cat food from Sammy and Percivals’ dishes… the resulting diarrhea is disgusting, smelly and deposited in extremely inconvenient places… like the foot of my bed at 1:15 AM. Spike is happily unaware of the distress this faux pas incurred, and is as affectionate as ever. She is, however, going to sleep in a basket underneath the bed until I am quite sure that what she ate yesterday has entirely passed through her short digestive system and finished wreaking havoc. I really don’t want to be stripping the bed and getting out clean sheets and blankets in the wee hours. Again.

The Lesser Weevil came already named, so we had to keep on calling her by it, as she was already conditioned to respond. I wish I had thought to name her “Fluffy”, just for the delicious comedy of introducing the pair of them to strangers; the iron-boned, iron-muscled 50-pound slightly ferocious-appearing boxer mix, and the five-pound white Shi-Tzu fluff-ball. “These are my dogs— this is Fluffy, and the little one is Spike.” The two of them even compound the comedy by having become the dearest of chums. Lesser Weevil needed a couple of days to learn to treat Spike gently— she indulges Spike as a puppy, allowing her to crawl all over her, and mercilessly chew her ears and jowls, and bark at her. The only thing she does not indulge, is Spike raiding her food dish; that is where the line is clearly drawn, with a snap and a growl. Otherwise, they tussle and roll together in the middle of the floor, and curl up affectionately, and share the same toys and bones. (Something to giggle over; Spike gnawing at the end of one of Weevils’ enormous brontosaur thigh-bones, a bone which is measurably longer than herself.)

I took them both out on leashes this last Saturday and Sunday for the mid-morning walkies. This must have been terribly amusing for the neighbors, a lady of certain age being dragged along by one dog, and trying not to trip over the other, who skittered back and forth, overcome by the adventure of it all. By Sunday, though, she had caught on to the whole leash and walkies concept, and bounded energetically side by side with the Weevil, head up and tail wagging, ears and long fur flapping and bouncing, porpoising through the stretches of tall grass. Of course, she had to run at full tilt to even begin to keep level with Weevil at a slow trot. They did keep pace in another way, though— they both loved to meet people, and romped up to everyone, trustfully and affectionately. And everyone they met admired them both extravagantly for being such beautiful and intelligent dogs.