Cruisin’ for a bruisin’

Sue Clark

“Cruiser’s missing,” my friend Dave said. He is usually the calm,

collected type, but today he sounded distraught. Dave and I both have

small, well-behaved rescue dogs from the Huntington Beach Shelter.

Weelo, Dave’s dog, is a small, feisty, spotted rat-terrier type, and

my Wilson looks like a mix of terrier with a Chihuahua head. Cruiser,

however, is a different story. He belongs to Dave’s son, Matt, and is

the antithesis of our dogs.

Upon first glance, the 85-pound Cruiser looks like a large,

black-and-white pit bull. He has that same blocky head and muscular

body. But upon further investigation, you’ll find that he’s an

English cattle dog, just an overgrown pup who wants you to play

tug-a-rope with him 24 hours a day. If you accept the slime-covered

rope and start to tug gingerly on it, he will love you. But since

Cruiser is so good-hearted, he will love you anyway. It’s like having

a 2-year-old without the temper tantrums.

Our two small dogs, Weelo and Wilson, took awhile to warm up to

Cruiser. The first thing Cruiser did was grab Wilson’s leash in his

scary-looking teeth and attempt to drag the little 13-pounder around

the yard. Wilson would take one look at him and dart me a

long-suffering look. Then he’d race behind Dave’s computer chair or

assume guard-dog position on the top of Dave’s couch. You can run,

but you cannot hide from Cruiser, who thought he was small and would

leap up to join Wilson on top of the couch.

Weelo who had the task of training Cruiser, and is the alpha dog

of the group, would grab onto Cruiser’s large, spotted jowls and hang

there, growling. Cruiser loved this and pestered Weelo relentlessly

to continue biting him and hanging like an ornament from his lower

lip. Did I mention Cruiser has eaten things made of wood and steel

and is impervious to pain? If you have anything you would like for

Cruiser to test out, just throw it in Dave’s backyard, and if Cruiser

cannot eat it, it is unbreakable.

But I digress. On the day Dave reported Cruiser missing, I had

actually become somewhat fond of the big lug, and Dave admitted he

loved him. His story was of the escape apparently planned by Weelo

and Cruiser. (It had to be masterminded by Weelo, because we are not

sure of the depth of Cruiser’s intellect.)

At any rate, they both lurked by the back gate, and when a friend

of Dave’s opened it, they rushed out into the street. Now Santa Ana

Boulevard is a pretty busy street, but they both made it across

before Dave came running after them. They are very speedy dogs, and

Dave’s son got in his car and drove out looking for them.

Dave returned from an unsuccessful attempt to find the two and

noticed Weelo standing sheepishly by the gate, as if to say “just

kidding, Boss.” Cruiser was still missing.

Later that day, Dave got a call from a woman name Violet. “I have

your dog at Shiffer Park,” she said. “I called my office and someone

is bringing a rope, so I can tie him to a tree. I hope you come and

get him, because I have to make a deposit at the bank.” Violet also

called later and repeated the information.

By the time Dave got to the park, Cruiser had apparently escaped

again. The mood was somber at Dave and Matt’s house. Even I, who

usually cursed at Cruiser when he would knock me down in his

exuberance, felt sad.

A few hours later, Dave’s phone rang again. This time it was the

Newport Beach Animal Shelter. “We have Cruiser,” they told Dave, who

went to pick him up. Cruiser was unabashed and still smiling that

doofus grin he always had.

If there is a moral to this narrative, I guess it’s that all of

our dogs had ID collars on. But also, I think it’s a tribute to our

Newport-Mesa community that people cared enough to take time out of

their days to rescue Cruiser.

Hardly a changed dog, Cruiser is now teaching Wilson how to hold

his own lash in his teeth. Wilson is, in turn, learning how to growl

in an alpha sort of way (maybe alpha-minus) at the big dog and back

him down. And now and then, they all look furtively at the back

fence.

* SUE CLARK is a Newport Beach resident and a high school guidance

counselor at Creekside High School in Irvine.