Some dogs you don't put into baskets.

I had thought that Otterpop should begin riding in the basket on my cruiser like her sister, instead of running alongside. She loves more than anything to be tied to Gustavo and sprint along next to the bike. And Ruby loves to ride in her basket, bungee tied behind my seat. We can do this all day.

But Otterpop's leg isn't good for long running, and I thought for it's longevity she should learn to ride up front in her very own handlebar basket. I should say I don't stand out in our neighborhood, The Lady That Rides Her Bike With All The Little Black Dogs. I live in a neighborhood where riding around like this just helps me blend. But we don't make it far like this. Otterpop has other plans for her life, and none of them include being a goddamn basket riding dog. To hell with it. She's a runner with Gustavo, that's the only way to fly.

At the end of our block, located exactly next door from where we attended the bike-by shooting, lives the house of the free range chihuahuas. It's an old wooden house, from when our whole neighborhood was a coastal dairy farm full of musket toting whale stabbers, very hard to even see through the big shady trees, the house where the junk hauling man lives with his trucks full of junk.

He's a tiny little man with a very loud voice who lives with a very young lady and a baby. I have seen the baby also free range at times. We used to sometimes want to return the free range chihuahuas back to their yard, wedge them through the solid gate on wheels that someone installed when the meth addict pro surfer lived across the way. Too many pitbulls, too many afro wigs on waverunners in the middle of the night. I know how wiley wirey little dogs can be, shimmying through any tiny hidey hole they see. Little fellas, as cute as they are cut throat, just out for a jaunt.

In another time, before I was a kinder and gentler and soothing provider of customer service, maybe I would have yelled nasty things at the little man, so that he could yell back. Quite a sight we would have been, down there on the end of the block, waving our arms and our dogs and shouting at the tops of our lungs. Now, I beam beatifically when I see the roamers rolling around in a another neighbor's front yard tomatoes and taking a poop on the pigeon lady's porch.

We roll by, the runner dogs running and Ruby catching the breeze from her basket, resting her chin on my hip. The free rangers take up chase, they're pretty fast little fellas, with what I presume are tiny, razor sharp fangs. They can't catch us though, not Team Small Dog, and we ride away to watch the sun drop.