The California Avocado Dog

I've noticed something.

Most of the dogs that I've encountered here in Los Angeles look like giant, furry avocados.

The shape, I mean. Not necessarily the creamy green avocado goodness.

Most doggies are of indeterminate breed (although it's hilarious when their owners try to tell me what the possibilties are) and a generic size - medium. Skinny legs. Weight, which generally falls into the large to extra large category. I call them "The Avocado Dogs".

And they're all shaped like avocados - small head, slim shoulders, then giant fat furry ass. With a big tail that wags their giant posterior whenever they walk or wag. Their owners usually tell me that they got them from an animal shelter which is a really really great thing, and that they're really sweet dogs.

There is a great story that my mom and dad tell that helped me to formulate my California Avocado Dog theory. A friend of theirs had a dog named Sneaky. Sneaky was your classic Avocado Dog. He had short, stiff black fur like a big black kiwi. He was a sweet dog, with a large-sized belly and skinny legs.

Sneaky lived in a beautiful house in Echo Park where they had lots of fruit trees - lemons, oranges, and avocados. Lots of wildlife up there too that would enjoy running through the trees and snacking on fruit. Each summer, Sneaky would get very very fat, and then in the winter he'd go back to his standard avocado size. Now Sneaky wasn't particularly agile - as all avocado dogs are not - so it wasn't that he was exercising or yo-yo dieting. Mom and dad commented many times on how fat Sneaky would get in the summer, then relatively slim in the winter. Nobody knew why.

Well one day they saw something. Sneaky was stomping around the grounds, just being a happy avocado dog. They noticed that there were lots of almost-fully-eaten avocados on the ground and Sneaky was slurping on one. Ah, they thought, Sneaky must somehow be getting to the avocados each summer. But Sneaky, being a chubby pup, had no way to climb up those big trees, and he was too fat to just wait for any crumbs that fell off the tree on their own.

What was happening? Sneaky had a lot of time on his hands. He figured out when the squirrels would be most active in the avocado trees. Squirrels apparently like avocados too - just not as much as avocado dogs. In their eating of the avocados, Sneaky would wait for just the right moment to bark - thus startling the squirrels in mid-eating and allowing the tasty avocado to fall to the ground. Then the eating could commence in earnest. He would do this over and over until he was literally full of avocado.

Thus the shape of the great California Avocado Dog was secure. And it's a great story.

Avocado dogs are usually really nice to me. This post isn't a complaint or a slam or anything. Just something that I've noticed...

Love,
Bogart