This is not Chuleta, but she looked a lot like her without the black hair.
It is disproportionate the amount of joy and grief that a tiny being can bring in a blink of an eye, which is as long as she lived.
Chuleta, meaning chop, was named so initially because we presumed she would be a plaything … a small chew toy for Majo, under proper supervision of course. She was a wirehair Fox Terrier, mostly white with a couple of ginger spots, and a Small-Dog-Syndrome personality. She would plunge into Majo’s toy pile, pick up the biggest thing, like a cow femur, triple her size and weight, and drag it away undeterred by any obstacles in her way or Majo’s growling. And so it turned out that her name, which in Peninsular Spanish vernacular is affectionate for cocky, suit her to a T (for Terrier) once it was established that she would not! be anybody’s chew toy.
She was a sherpa of discovery, a prodigy of self-assertion, an entrepreneur of play, pausing only to dream. But she was not growing. We took her to the veterinarian at the first opportunity -- there was only one in the whole Costa del Sol, in Estepona, Málaga. The diagnostic couldn’t be worse: acute diabetes. I don’t remember whether there was no veterinary treatment in those days, or the condition was beyond it, or … but we decided on a second opinion. She died at noon the next day, just before we could get it. I could not stop crying – guilt always makes sorrow deeper, more desperate.
Like the treasure she was, I wrapped her in antique embroidered handkerchiefs, placing her inside a 10× 8-inch security chest –sage-green enamel, I remember — I bought to keep her safe. No telling what the hardware store clerk must have thought of my spasmodic sobbing. I locked and sealed the bullet-proof coffin the next day, and so kept her until we bought an idyllic piece of land, outside Ezcaray, in La Rioja, months later.
I buried the chest under a poplar near the snowmelt stream that becomes the Rio Oja, which gives name to the region. I had hoped to live there some day; bury all my pets there. Chuleta was the first to go. But the farmer who sold the land, Altuzarra, curse him and all his miserable lineage, spied on me when I dug the small grave. Later, expecting to find cash or jewels he found what remained of Chuleta instead. Maybe he tossed her into the bubbling stream … I hope. He got his money, anyway, by illegally cutting her tree and 30 others to sell the wood.
Chuleta was born because a greedy old man bred sick dogs for profit; her remains were defiled by a thieving old man. Yet, not for being bracketed by human darkness, did this star of enchantment shine less brightly.
Often remembered still, a half century later. And just as frequently wondering why the hell didn't we take a single picture.
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