There Goes the Neighborhood

One Friday evening a few weeks ago, I was getting ready to meet friends for Korean Barbecue. Tommy frolicked in the backyard. As I brushed my teeth, I realized how relaxed I was and how blissfully unusual that felt: Tommy was in the backyard!

Tommy enjoys the backyard with his girlfriend, Babe

In my old place, I’d have to take Tommy for a marathon walk before going out for an evening, and I was always rushed.

But tonight was different. It was a warm evening. I wore a dress. As I pondered what shoes to wear I heard Tommy barking. Normally Tommy is not a big barker, so I knew he was up to no good.

I went outside. I couldn’t see him but I could hear him rustling through the leaves. Predictably, he ignored my calls. I followed the rustling to the sunken part of the yard, wild and lush with overgrown trees and ivy. I called him again. I still couldn't see him, but I heard the rustling as it traveled away from me, into my neighbor’s yard - and beyond.

F**k!

I said it several times as I ran into the house.

I threw on jeans under my dress, put on sneakers and jetted out the front door. I knocked on my neighbor’s door but they didn’t answer. So I went to the neighbor next to them, two houses down from me, running past the young mom getting into her car. I frantically explained my plight, and she kindly extended an open invitation to use her yard anytime I needed. I silently hoped I'd never have to again.

Because of the natural wash that runs through the yards along my side of the street, they're overrun with brush and ivy just like mine. People have given up trying to tame the wildness. It's paradise for little creatures and for the dogs that chase them, but not so great for a woman in a dress.

At least I could see Tommy now. He was in the yard behind the young mom's. I ran through hers and up a slope covered in ivy into the yard of a neighbor I'd never seen. I cursed and wondered if my neighbors could see or hear me as I ran after the loose pit bull.

Tommy must've been tired or perhaps he'd given up. He sort of stumbled into me. I put his snoot loop on and dragged him home.

As I put on mascara in the bathroom, I could hear Tommy panting in the kitchen. The chase had exhausted him. I could walk him for hours, even play a few rounds of fetch in the backyard, and never tire him out like that.

Home Sweet Home

A few days before I moved into my house, I stopped by to check out the paint job. Tommy was so excited by the new neighborhood, he didn’t even notice the lizard in the window (outside, thankfully).

Things changed on April 1, my first day in the house.

Juanita and her two helpers were in the kitchen cleaning. I heard a scream. Juanita called out my name. Exhausted (the move was hell), I stumbled toward them. I stood outside the doorway, afraid of what I'd see. Juanita stared at me expectantly.

In any crisis, a leader must emerge. I saw that lizard clinging to the wall between the microwave and the stove and squealed like a little girl.

The next few minutes were filled with mayhem. We tried to coax the lizard into a bucket but it wouldn't budge. I'd opened the side door for the lizard's escape path, but Tommy charged in scaring the señoritas. When I turned away, the lizard somehow flew across the kitchen and ended up under the refrigerator.

I moved the fridge. The lizard scurried across the floor into the garage. Tommy pounced on him.

I screamed at Tommy as I hit him on the behind with a broom (not a proud moment, but believe me, it didn't phase him).

In two seconds he had the lizard in his mouth. He shook it with abandon until half of it flew across the room into a pile of junk. The other half got sucked into his mouth as if it were a spaghetti noodle.

The predator and his prey. Nature is cruel.

Later, the lizard fiasco behind us, Juanita called me into the bathroom. Water seeped out from the bottom of the toilet. Two inches of dirty water filled the tub.

Damn. I knew I had sewer issues but I didn't think I'd have to call a plumber my first day in the house. One had just cleaned the pipes two weeks ago. I arranged for him to come the next morning.

"You can use the toilet, but don't flush." 

I hadn't yet returned the keys, so that night I went to my old place, leaving Tommy tied to the front tree. The electricity had already been turned off but I knew my way to the bathroom.

The next morning I woke up early and drove to Starbucks to do my business. Then I went home to meet Mike the Plumber.

Mike had the sewer pipes cleared in no time. What a relief. Can you imagine living without working toilets?

Plumbers are unsung heroes. Tommy agrees as he marvels at the functioning flush.

Sideways Tommy

It’s been stormy all day. Poor Tommy. He hates the rain, but his wild energy needs to be burned off or he'd drive the cats and me crazy. So, we stepped out into the pouring rain in the last hours of daylight. After about 30 minutes, the rain started coming down in sheets, and the wind kicked up. It was kind of scary. So I ducked for cover at the Altadena Country Club.

Possessed Tommy (I need to work on my camera skills.)

The flags cracked in the wind, a sound that made me think of Pasadena Adjacent. She always posts cool video clips with interesting sights and sounds. So I turned on my Droid’s camcorder app.

Unfortunately it’s been years since I’ve videotaped so I’ve forgotten the essentials, like not turning the camera sideways.

This is god-awful, but it stars Tommy. And even a sideways Tommy is worth viewing.



I have an idea what he’s eating–or trying to eat–when he licks the cement patio. What’s your guess?

Valentine’s Day, Our Anniversary

I could not have told the following story until your deep and abiding affection for Tommy had been established. Otherwise your first impression would have been much less favorable.

Pendant by Eekazookie

After the failed attempt to leave Tommy at the shelter, I boarded him at Gateway Animal Hospital. Boarding at Gateway was cheap, and for good reason. Tommy lived in a cage. When I’d come by after work to walk him, he’d burst out of the building and bounce down Los Feliz Boulevard, while I self-consciously tried to assume some semblance of control.

I met a woman in the waiting room who knew the pit bull breed. She became enamored with Tommy when he smothered her with sloppy kisses (“You’re really lucky,” she said). Love bites went along with those kisses, and she advised me to be firm with him. “Pit bulls need a strong hand.” Then she told me to visit Julie at Wagville.

Wagville offers cage-free day care and boarding with a pet boutique storefront. While waiting for Julie, I realized since finding Tommy I’d opened a door to a foreign world previously unknown to me. Not unlike Dorothy landing in Oz, I’d stepped into the World of Dogs, inhabited by obsessed people who spent billions of dollars a year on, and whose entire lives revolved around, their dogs. In less than a week I’d become one of them.

Julie said I could board Tommy at Wagville at a reduced rate while I looked for a place to live but only after he was neutered.

I hated the thought of him recuperating in that cage, so I put out a plea to the Echo Park Animal Alliance. Jen Byrne replied within minutes, which is remarkable. Since joining the list three years ago, I’ve seen countless dogs needing help and countless pleas for fosters. Many times those pleas go unanswered. With Jen’s quick response, I felt as if Tommy had guardian angels watching out for him.

Tommy got neutered and, with a cone around his head, went to camp out at Jen’s in Atwater Village while I looked for a new place to live. Three weeks later I moved into the duplex in Pasadena and settled in with the cats.

There’s a lot to be said about those three weeks but I’ll save that story for another time, because this story is about Valentine’s Day, the day, three years ago, that I picked up Tommy at Jen’s to start our new life together.

On the way home I stopped at Petco in Glendale. Tommy sniffed the shelves with the enthusiasm of a 2-year-old boy let loose in a candy shop. An employee laughed at Tommy’s energy and asked how old he was. Before I could answer, Tommy popped up into his face. The employee stood before me with his hand to his lip and a look of horror on his face, which I returned.

“Oh my God, did he just bite you?”

He looked at his hand, revealing the blood on his lower lip.

“He just bit me.” Disbelief with disgust mingled in his voice.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry.”

I feebly said it over and over as he, pissed–and rightly so–turned toward the employees-only area to attend to his wound.

Overwhelmed, I left the store and drove the stray pit bull home. The honeymoon was over before it had even begun. And things got worse before they got better.

No Guarantees

I should’ve brought Tommy to the nearest animal shelter after I picked him up at Beverly and Rampart, but all I knew about shelters at that time was that countless dogs, particularly pit bulls, were put to death, and I didn’t want to see that happen to him. But I wasn’t in a position to keep him so I had to do something.

The Lacey Street shelter was closed the day he woke up in my bed, so after walking him around the Franklin Hills, I brought him to my vet to board him. I returned the next day to take him to the shelter.

A cacophony of barking dogs, out of sight behind cement walls, greeted me as I stepped out of the car. Tommy was on high alert.

Inside I loitered around the reception area while a couple signed papers and talked to a shelter worker at the front desk. A few other people sat waiting. I walked down the hallway and checked out the bulletin board crowded with cards and flyers of lost dogs. I hung a FOUND DOG flyer with Tommy's picture.

Cages filled with cats were stacked along one wall. I didn’t see any dogs though they made their presence known. The barking was relentless. Tommy’s agitation grew so I stepped outside with him.

A woman led a medium-sized dog past us, exacerbating Tommy's excitement. He barked and whined and bucked up just as a shelter employee, a man in a navy blue jumpsuit, walked by. With a nod of his chin he said, “He’s aggressive, huh?”

I knelt down to calm Tommy. “No, he’s just excited.”

I told him I wanted to place first adoption rights on Tommy but I wasn't sure how it worked.

"So I leave him for 5 days and if no one has claimed him, I can take him home?"

The guy shook his head. "No guarantees," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"No guarantees."

"But if I have first adoption rights and come back after 5 days..."

"You know how many pit bulls get put down here every day? No guarantee he’ll still be here when you come back."

I was horrified.

He shook his head. "If you want to save this dog, don't leave him here..."

And with that he sauntered through the glass doors into the shelter leaving Tommy's fate in my hands.

I walked to the car and drove back to the vet.

Meet Ponchito

Remember the Hahamongna Chihuahua?

I found him running alongside Hahamongna Watershed Park last August. Rita took him in, called him Ponchito the Fierce Warrior, and he’s been at Starcrest ever since. Apparently all the “girls” love him. That scruffy little guy is treated like a king, carried from his condo to the yard and back again. One morning I saw him from a distance and yelled out to the young woman coddling him, “Is that Ponchito?” She put him down and he wagged his tail at the sound of my voice. What do you know, he remembered me. 

Tommy and I explored Hahamongna last week with Petrea of Pasadena Daily Photo fame. Today's post is about L.A. County Department of Public Works' misguided sediment removal plan and what we can do to try and prevent Hahamongna's destruction. I'm honored Tommy gets to be Hahamongna poster child and photo of the day. Check him out.

I wish every dog could be as lucky as Ponchito. And as a lover of animals of all kinds, I hope the wild ones of Hahamongna can be saved.

That First Night

It was a little over three years ago that I coaxed the stray dog into my car with a couple of burgers and drove away with him in the back seat. Customers watched as if I were crazy.

Aimless, I found my way to Catts & Doggs, where the salesclerk gave me a donated leash and harness and came out to help put it on "Butch," which is what I first called him, inspired by his playful, macho energy.

The clerk approached gingerly. Who knew how a stray pit bull would react? But Butch just smothered the guy in sloppy kisses.

The harness was snug but it would do. I picked up a friend in Silver Lake, and we returned to Beverly and Rampart to try to find Butch's human. We walked around a 'hood I would have avoided had it not been for the pit bull by my side. Only one person recognized him. Apparently he'd been wandering the streets for days when some guy took him in. The apartment manager wouldn’t have it, so he turned the dog loose on the street again. That’s the only clue to his past I ever learned.

By now it was late afternoon. I had plans for a belated birthday dinner with a few friends. I didn't want to cancel my own celebration, but I was still stuck with the pit bull. My coworker and friend Kim, an animal lover, agreed to watch him, so I drove to her place in Pasadena. As I waited outside with Butch, I saw in a flash he looked like Tommy Lee Jones. I mentioned it to Kim, who reacted the way everyone has since: she laughed, took a second look, and then exclaimed, "He really does look like Tommy Lee Jones!" The name stuck, re-enforced by the place where I picked him up a couple of hours ago:  Original Tommy's Hamburgers.

Cuidad (now Border Grill) was lovely, but I worried about what to do with Tommy. I secretly hoped Kim would keep him for the night, but, though Tommy and Buddy played relentlessly, Kim was concerned for the cats. I called a sister on the East Coast, and we discussed my options. I could keep him in my car overnight, but what if he tore the interior to shreds? I could sleep with him in the car, but how much sleep would I get? I could get a room at the Vagabond Inn, a dog-friendly hotel, but $100/night was a splurge. I decided on my last best option: sneak him into my apartment.

When I opened the car door, Tommy jumped right in as if he belonged with me. No hesitation like he'd displayed earlier in the day, no hamburgers required to coax him in.

I pulled into the apartment parking garage at midnight. Fortunately no one was around, and I managed to get to my 3rd-floor studio without being seen.

Tommy explored the apartment with gusto, sniffing every square inch. He went up to Ramona, who arched her back and hissed so he backed off. I thought it safest to separate him so I locked him in the bathroom on a makeshift bed, but he whined until I gave up and let him out. He then jumped on the bed, curled up in a tight ball in the middle of it, and fell asleep. I crawled into bed with him. Across the room, Ramona kept a watchful eye from her perch on the couch. Frieda, still young and naïve, joined us on the bed. Curious, she placed her front paws on me and peeked over my body to get a good look at the pit bull on the other side. Poor girl. She had no idea he would soon be the bane of her existence.

Tommy didn’t leave me much room. In my cramped spot, I reflected on the day: WTF?! I was in bed with a stray dog who’d been living on the streets. What had I done?!

I had a fitful night’s sleep exacerbated by Tommy’s masculine snores.

My eyes popped open when my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. Tommy lazily got out of bed, stretched into the perfect downward-facing dog, and licked me good morning.

We snuck down to the garage and I drove a few blocks and parked. In the early morning light, I walked Tommy along the windy streets of the Franklin Hills neighborhood and planned my next step.

A few weeks later I relayed the Tommy story to a coworker. She asked what I did with him that first night and when I told her we both laughed at how funny it sounded.

Yep, we slept together that first night, but it was to be no one-night stand.