Chihuahuas

My mother has always been fond of little fellows. Every time she had the opportunity to go unnoticed through the neighborhood, she went to chat with the smallest dog I've ever seen. He lived two blocks from our home and spent the afternoon in the front yard watching people pass by and waving his tail. Sometimes his guardian was around, seated in a reclining chair, drinking beer and laughing with friends. Sometimes he was alone, anxiously looking back to the house and asking for company. My mother would stop by and comment about the trivial matters of the day. In occasions she talked about me and about how I was becoming a difficult youngster with a short temper. On my part, I considered the Chihuahua something amusing, delicate and fragile like a toy but he could never command my respect.
I came to be irritated by the attention my mother gave to him. One day, I stopped in my way home and he greeted me with the usual joy. I started boasting about the wild games I played, how I destroyed the sofa and spent a few months in confinement. His face suddenly turned serious. He shaked his head and said in a whisper,
" You are a lucky guy, many other families would have ejected you from home; not to the streets, where you have some chance to survive on your own, but to those prisons where they keep the orphans and rejected. And I tell you, boy, if nobody picks you up in a week, is very likely you will be killed there. They give you some poison and you are dead before you can beg for mercy"
The whole tale made me very upset, no less than the fact that he called me boy.
" Whoever wants to kill me", I replied, "will pay with blood. I am part wolf, can you see it?"
He laughed at that.
" You are no wolf, you are just a mutt. I have pure blood. Everybody who looks at me knows that I am a Chihuahua and knows where my ancestors came from. But whoever looks at you, cannot tell what you are"
I growled, the hair in my back, suddenly upright,
" I can eat your head with one bite, wolf or not"
By that time, my mother was between us, trying to cool the situation. Just to be graceful to her, he changed his tone,
"It was not my intention to hurt your feelings", he said," Just to give you a dose of reality, being you so young and impulsive. I am an old soul, my friend. I couldn't help but notice that you are not neutered, and that may be the reason of your behavior. If you want to keep your balls, be gentle. Be like me. I am so small and good natured, that nobody considers me a threat. That's why I am still a man. But start looking around, in the park, on the street, and you'll see the sad reality of our emasculated race. To have power, don't be like a wolf, be like a cockroach. They are not feared but thrive in every house and cannot be eradicated.
Listen to a grown fellow. All those German shepherds around us, are eunuchs. They started just like you, howling in the nights and calling their ancestor, the wolf. Dreaming about gaining the Alfa position in the pack and getting all the ladies."
My ears were down when I returned home. Not a dog but reality has grabbed me by the neck.