Saturday, October 28, 2006 - 03:32 AM | 199 Reads

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Since Snickers the Wonder Dog is half Coyote, I have worked very hard with her through the years to keep her from wanting to chase and eat, either small crawly things or large running things. All the time has paid off and she has become a very well behaved dog, willing to do as told; most times. Her transformation from the frozen north to the tropics has been a bit of an adjustment, to say the least. The most evident change has been the loss of about 10 pounds of hair off a 45-pound dog. Always willing to dive right into any northwest river, either winter or summer, she has always seemed very accustomed to water; except here. I think because this water makes noise, doesn’t taste like water and also chases her, the ocean is still a strange thing for her to comprehend. However, the principal thing that has caught her full and complete attention, are the Iguanas.

These prehistoric throwbacks come in several colors and many sizes; some approaching Monitor. Since most of these lizards are vegetarians, they either eat the leaves off the trees or venture to the ground for the other weedy stuff. There was a very popular lizard salad bar right next to my aluminum box at Mar-a-Villas RV Park. I would sit in the morning and watch somewhere between 2 and 6 of these cautious reptiles chow down on something that seemed to only grow in profusion in a couple of areas in the park. By the time the sun had been up for an hour or so, they would disappear back into the trees for the day.

During our first months in Cerritos, Snickers would only want to face the hostile summer environment while accompanying me on a beach walk or a bike ride. I would open the door with “well…..you want to go out?” And of course she would always sit and give me a look that said “no way dude”. During the years she lived in Idaho, her world was outside, it was hard to even get her to come into the house. Then came the day of the dinosaurs.

One morning, about 6:30, I opened the door and made my standard offer, “well……..you want to go out?” This morning was her first venture out into the strange new world of the RV Park on her own; thank god, she is starting to settle in. While spending my next 10 minutes squeezing up my liter of morning orange juice (I was going to use the term OJ, but the connotations were too disturbing), Snickers was out watering the various palm trees. One of the really different things about this dog is that she will lift her leg to pee, just like a male dog. However she will only do it where a male dog has done the same deed; strange, eh? Anyway, I was watching her making her first rounds when I noticed she caught the scent of something. Her nose was in the air trying to locate a primeval scent she had not encountered before. It was then that I noticed that the lizard pack were at their morning salad bar, heads dipping and jaws working. This particular morning there were only four of them, however none were less than 3 feet; nose to tip of tail. Snickers was about 50 meters away when she started her attempt to locate the ancient odor given off by this small pack of feeding Iguanas.

It seems that nature has given the Iguanas several of methods of defense and survival, most of which they employed that morning. Once they sensed that not all was right with their universe, they all turned into 3 foot green statues; survival method 1. Since during the rainy season everything is green, including the lizards, Snickers was just following her nose, actual visual contact was still a few moments off. When I finally realized that an encounter was fast approaching, I began fumbling for my camera.

I immediately admired the lizard’s fortitude for allowing an obvious predator to within 15 feet without moving a mussel, but that was shortly before I fully appreciated the second attribute of their highly tuned survival skills. As close as The Wonder Dog was to her quarry, there was still no visual contact, only a strange scent to track. At this point in the season, the vegetation was 6 to 10 inches deep, perfect cover for the covert pack of dinos. When Snickers closed the distance to about 3 feet and made eye contact with the first Iguana, all hell broke loose.


These ancient reptiles may seem primitive, but their minds must be psychically linked; an instantaneously reaction occurred between one and all. If before this scene, had anyone told me that a 3-foot lizard could run on it’s hind legs at blinding speeds, my skepticism would have been harsh. As these little dinosaurs exploded out of the foliage and made for the safety of the palms, Snickers’ shock was as equally instantaneous and propelled her back 3 feet with every one of her remaining hairs standing on end while producing a yelp from her I have never heard before this encounter nor since.

Unfortunately I was laughing so hard, I was unable to get any decent pictures of this eruption of creatures so foreign to each other. And since the Iguanas are smart enough not to come back to their former salad bar, they now hang out in the trees and will tease Snickers by hissing or by perching just out of reach. Of course she wants out everyday at about 6:30 to peruse the grounds in hopes of finding one of these strange things out of the tree. I believe if she ever got that close, she would soon discover survival method number 3. If I allowed her to, she would spend hours beneath the dinosaur tree and just watch them move from branch to branch.

Since it appears to be a source entertainment for both the lizard pack and the dog, I figured the natural order of things, in an increasingly civilized world, has just evolved. The clever reptiles have many food sources and the dog is also well fed, but what they have discovered is a source of entertainment that is a day-by-day occurrence that seems to be enjoyed by both.