PANCHO

My name is Pancho and I'm a street dog. They call me a street dog because I live in the streets; I live in the streets of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. San Miguel is in central Mexico, in the mountains, so it's always cool here; sometimes it's cold at night. Many artists live here and, there are art galleries all over town. Tourists come here from all over the world.

I was born here in an alley. My mother was a street dog and probably my daddy too, though I don't even know him. I haven't seen my mother for a long time. I've got two sisters and three brothers, and they're street dogs too. I hardly ever see them, and when I do, they act like they don't even know me.  They're like all of the other dogs here, wandering around all the time aimlessly, all over town, usually hunting for something to eat. There are a lot of cafes and restaurants in this town, so we just make the rounds, get a bite here and a bite there.

I'm two years old now, so I know my way around pretty good. It was tough at first, when I was little, and you can starve here if you don't get smart quick. I grew up real fast, so I'm still around. I can do whatever I want to here in San Miguel, so I love it here. Street dogs are free.

I don't know why dogs can't talk. I've tried and tried, but every time it just comes out a bark or a growl. I can understand most of what people are saying, but they can't understand me unless I get real mad or something. What I've been hearing lately has really got me worried. I hear them talking around the plaza downtown. They say that there are about five thousand dogs in the streets of San Miguel, and that's too many.  They're going to start rounding us up and put us in the animal shelter jail. They only have room there for about four dogs. So where could they put us? And why is the place located next to the slaughterhouse? The dogs that I've seen picked up have never been heard from again. I've told most of the other dogs to watch out for that dog truck. We can easily outrun the catchers most of the time, but I worry about the old dogs that can't move very fast any more. The plaza is the worst place to hang out, because they're always around there. I still go there every day just to warn the other dogs; a lot of them forget or just get careless.

One day, while I was at the plaza, I spotted this old black man (I guess he's not real old, about fifty, but that's three hundred and fifty dog years). I've seen Clarence around here for a long time, and he always looks real worried, so I never bothered him before, but today he was sitting on a park bench eating tamales. He told me to move along, but I sat down near him hoping to share his tamales. Clarence is an artist, and he likes to teach art to the tourists that come to San Miguel. Not too many tourists want to learn art, or they think that they were born knowing how to do it, like it just comes natural, so students are scarce. I guess that's why Clarence always looks worried. Anyway, I sat down next to him, hoping that he had more tamales than he could eat, and he would offer me some. Well, he never did offer me any, just wrapped the leftover tamales in some foil and started home. I decided to follow him, still craving a tamale.

Clarence only lives about six blocks south of the plaza, and I stayed about a half block behind him, keeping a close lookout for the dog truck. When Clarence got near his house I closed the gap between us and hid behind a bougainvillea bush. Three old scraggly looking cats ran up to Clarence just as he was about to go into his house. He tossed the three tamales that he had left into the street for the cats and went on in his house. As soon as he got inside his door I rushed the scraggly cats, and they scattered. They left two of the tamales behind, and I made quick work of them. Clarence heard the screeching of the departing cats and stuck his head out the front door, just in time to see me polishing off the last tamale. He yelled at me and told me that if I didn't stay away from his cats he would call the dog truck to get me. That didn't scare me, but I left anyway because of his bad attitude, and I just don't like cats.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around town, mostly warning the other dogs about the dog truck. The catchers are slow and lazy, so most of us can outrun them, but the old slow dogs are in danger. It was getting close to sundown, and I got to thinking about those tamales that I'd had, so I strolled back to Clarence's house. It was quiet and peaceful there, so I laid down to rest behind the bougainvillea bush. I guess I dozed off, and I woke up when I heard the front door open. Clarence was throwing out some scraps to four cats that were hanging around his front door. I waited until Clarence got back in the house and closed his door. I tried to scatter the cats without too much commotion, but that's hard to do with cats. They made so much noise that Clarence rushed out of the house and caught me. He yelled at me again and told me to get out. I sped off, but I'd had a few bites of leftover fajitas, one of my favorite dishes.

By now it was getting pretty dark, so I decided to return to the bougainvillea bush next to Clarence's front door and spend the night. It was a comfortable spot and might hold a promise for breakfast. I was sleeping real good when a loud noise woke me up. There was a big man, with a black moustache, holding a machete, standing at Clarence's front door. He was trying to pry the door open with the machete. By the time I got there the man had managed to open the door, and he was already inside. Clarence was awake and was standing in front of the man, his eyes wide open and staring at him. I went for the intruder's heel and sunk my teeth in hard, giving him my most ferocious growl. The man yelled with pain and turned toward me with the machete. He slashed at me. I turned as quick as I could to miss the knife, but the machete caught me, and I got a little cut along my back. I was coming back at him for another bite, trying to dodge the machete. His back was turned to Clarence now, and Clarence picked up a chair and swung it, hitting the man across the back and the back of his head. The man went down, and I nipped him twice on the arm. The intruder started screaming, blood coming from his head, arm, and foot. He lunged past me and Clarence and out the front door. Clarence rushed after him with the chair, but the man disappeared into the darkness. When he returned Clarence rubbed my head and hugged me for the first time. This scared me at first, because he had never been nice to me before. He put some salve on my back where I had been cut, and then he put a blanket at the foot of his bed and gave me a big steak bone to chew on.

The next day Clarence made us a big breakfast and we both got plenty to eat. He gave the leftovers to the cats, but I didn't mind. Nowadays I stay with Clarence most all of the time. He feeds me pretty good when he has food, which isn't all of the time. I didn't much like the bath that he gave me, though I'll admit it ran most of the fleas off. He makes me stand up on a table sometimes while he paints my picture, which never looks like me, and people are starting to call me Picasso instead of Poncho.

I still go to the plaza and all around town to warn the other dogs about the dog truck. They don't get many of us, and I think they're pretty lazy, and they're losing interest. San Miguel de Allende is a pretty nice place for dogs to live if they stay away from the dog truck, because here street dogs are free.

Pete Smith.

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