One Extraordinary Gift

"That's a lot of character." It was Christmas Eve, 1995. My husband had airfield duty at a military base. The children had placed milk and cookies out for Santa Claus and went to bed. The house was quiet so I put on my pajamas as well and drifted off to a peaceful slumber. Suddenly I was awakened by my husband gently shaking my shoulder and quietly saying, "Honey, wake up. I brought you something and I want you to see it."

I was still half-asleep as my husband guided me into the dimly lit kitchen. He had a big smile on his face as he said, "Hon, I got you a Christmas gift and I want you to see it before the children wake up." I rubbed my eyes, smiled and nodded my head, "Ok, what is it?"

Walking towards the garage door that led into our kitchen, my husband asked, "Are you sure you are awake?" I nodded my head as anticipation and curiosity began to set in. I laughed at my husband's boyish grin. With my husbands hand on the doorknob and waiting for a response, I responded, "What is it?"

In one quick wide and sweeping motion, the door was opened. In ran the most incredible sight of which I had never seen before. I was stricken with awe as I tried to comprehend what this thing was that was energetically slip sliding towards me across our freshly polished kitchen floor.

"Ticketta-ticketta-tack, ticketta-tack, ticketta-ticketta-tack." I could not take my eyes off of this thing that was running towards me in the dim light. All of the sudden I heard myself exclaim, "Oh, my-God!"

My husband's joyful voice filled the kitchen as he happily exclaimed, "Yep! A three-legged, one-eyed Chihuahua!"

My hand was suddenly covering my mouth and all I could do was shake my head in disbelief. It was the most energetic and pitiful looking thing I had ever seen. At that same moment, our black cat decided to make an appearance onto the scene. A terrible ruckus pursued that woke the children up. They thought it was Santa until they entered into the kitchen and seen the chaos. Our eldest child laughingly exclaimed, "What is that!"

It was Christmas Eve and considering all the love this three-legged, one-eyed Chihuahua had obviously been given, we decided to call and ask animal control if anyone was missing such a dog. The man on duty replied that he was only there to feed the dogs that night. My husband then mentioned that he had found a three-legged Chihuahua. The man suddenly began to describe the dogs coloring and asked, "Does the dog happen to have only one eye?" My husband acknowledged, and the man was very happy to hear that we had the dog. The man appeared at our door only moments later. He told us that the owners were elderly and had been very upset as this dog had been missing for over two months.

When the man asked my husband where he had found the dog, it was a story for the books as well. Apparently, this three-legged, one-eyed Chihuahua had been seen on the security cameras running down the airfield runway and appearing on the screens as if it was a hopping rabbit. It had been quite a surprise when they retrieved it. Then, upon capturing this odd little dog, they discovered that this was the same animal that had earlier terrified two of the guards in the guard shack and who had thought it was some kind of exotic, rapid and wild animal that had somehow gotten into their shack.

Overall, it was the most extraordinary gift that we had ever encountered just in time for Christmas. When the animal control man asked my husband what he had thought when he realized that the rabbit was actually a three-legged, one-eyed Chihuahua, my husband replied, "That's a lot of character."