The Pittsburgh Press (January 12, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
ALBUQUERQUE – What, pray tell me, have I wrought now? Lord have pity on my poor sinful soul; I must have been thinking about something else at the time.
For I have bought a Great Dane!
The whole thing is still a little vague to me, it all happened so suddenly. But as far as I can remember, it went like this.
That Girl was delighted and agog over the toy shepherd I brought from Washington. But I still had in mind getting her a Great Dane some day.
We talked casually about it, and she said yes she’d like a Great Dane, too, but perhaps two dogs all of a sudden would be too much for her, so she’d rather wait a while for the Dane.
But since I’m going to be gone a long time, I thought it would be smart to look at a Dane and sort of get things lined up, in case she wanted it while I was away.
So we drove out to a kennel here in Albuquerque. When we stopped the car, a monstrous beast stuck its gigantic head in the car window and almost scared us to death. It was just one of several colossal animals running around the place – all Danes. They set up such a fiendish baying that it sounded as though the Hound of the Baskervilles were entertaining at a murder party.
Well, we plugged our ears and looked around. We were rather struck by a seven-months-old puppy which was already waist-high and weighed 100 pounds. It was brindle-colored and striped like a tiger. Its face was a million years old and you couldn’t help but laugh when he looked at you. And the damn dog kept leaning against me all the time.
Good theory doesn’t work
I suppose it was that leaning as much as anything else that caused mv destruction. All of a sudden I knew the jig was up. I looked at That Girl and saw that her jig was up, too. So I just turned my head to the sky, bayed loud and long, and whipped out the old checkbook.
We did keep our heads enough, however, to make the purchase on the basis that the kennel people would keep the dog for two more months, and during that time they would housebreak it and train it.
The theory was excellent. I still think it was a fine arrangement. There was nothing at all wrong with the plan. Except that we didn’t keep it.
For the following day was warm and sunshiny and we had nothing especial to do, so we said, “Let’s get the Dane and bring him out for just an hour or two.”
The kennel people said that would be all right, so we brought him out to the house. We turned him loose in the big south lot with the picket fence around it. The little toy shepherd was there, too. A furious sniffing took place between Mr. Big and Miss Little. And all of a sudden they became friends. And also all of a sudden we knew we weren’t going to take the big dog back to the kennel – ever.
Miss Little leads Mr. Big
So now we have two dogs. The little one is named Cheetah. The big one Piper. The little one can walk night under the big one, with six inches to spare. Yet already she leads him around by the nose.
The two dogs are wonderful for each other. They walk everywhere side by side, like two soldiers. When we came out the door they were standing there at attention with their ears cocked, one so ghastly big, one so dollishly tiny.
Now Mr. Big has condescended to play and leap a little with Cheetah. He is so immense that he leaps exactly like an elephant.
That Girl is horrified and riotously delighted with her strange new team. Already she is starting to get sore at people who see our dogs for the first time and don’t go into ecstasies over them.
There is a lot of jealousy floating around our house. Each dog is jealous of the other one; That Girl is jealous of me because the dogs follow me; and I’m jealous of her because the dogs are hers.
And right now I’m facing a choice between two awful alternatives. I can’t bear to leave these creatures; and yet I don’t dare stay. For the brutes between the eat six pounds a day, so I’ve got to get back on the road in order to support them.