Pepper, Son of Chico - Chapter 1

As promised, the story of Pepper, who was the son of Chico now unfolds.

Pepper was one of the the puppies resulting from my Dad loaning Chico to a family friend for stud service. The friend had a cute little Pomeranian/Chihuahua mixed dog and she wanted her little dog to have a litter of puppies. (For what reason, I never found out).  In any case, we ended up not getting the pick of the litter, since we spent the past few months trying to find Chico, who decided he had done his part and was upset after he was punished for leaving the property to explore the neighborhood.

Nowadays, we would never have allowed the breeding if we knew then what we now know about the pet overpopulation problem. Our three male dogs would have been neutered as puppies, and breeding would not have been an issue at all. However, that is all water under the bridge now.

Since we were not able to pick out the puppy we would have chosen, we were left with no choice at all, as the only puppy left was a very odd looking little thing.  He was nearly all black, with only a small white tip on his tail, and what looked like a little white dribble of white on his chin, and a small white patch on his chest. This poor excuse for a canine had very broad shoulders, and narrow hips, and a tail that curled over his back.  Oh yes, he also had a overbite, and big bulging eyes.  One very strange looking little guy.

This was in about 1961, as I now had a driver license, so I had to have been sixteen years old. Well, we took our prize home, and though he was very sweet, he was one ugly pup.

When Mom saw him, she made a very insightful comment. She said, " Well, he will have to be one really great little dog, since that is the only thing he will have going for him.  He's probably going to be a really smart little guy."

We were discussing possible names, and someone mentioned "Big John."   That happened to be the title of a popular song of the day, with one verse saying, "Big Bad John - broad at the shoulders and narrow at the hips, Big John."

Well, that fit his description pretty well, but we didn't really want to name him that.  This little guy was extremely energetic, and very curious. He was just full of pepper.  So, "Pepper" it was.