Just too weird to be true?

I’ve seen a lot of crazy and odd things in my life, but last Tuesday pretty much took the top spot.  It all started when I saw a frumpy-looking lady walking a pair of bizarre critters at Jenkins Park. There was no sign of David Berkowitz and my first thought was this couldn’t be real.  I’m pretty good at identifying the various breeds, but this pair of canis lupus had me at a total loss – not to mention the woman herself looked, well, like she was from another country or something. Come to find out, this casual meeting turned out to be something straight out of Bizarro magazine.

Her name is Nannie Goss and she’s a dog breeder, but that is kind of a stretch in itself. She’s been in Baytown for about 6 months and moved here from upstate New York “for reasons I won’t disclose”.  I’d call her a “creature” breeder, but I am not an expert in animal husbandry and the word creature was chosen very carefully here.

The first little guy looked like a cross between a Pomeranian and a raccoon and it even put its little hands in mine when I tried to pet it. I watched her give it a fish treat after I came up empty.  It made the cutest little noises which were a mix of gurgling and barking and its little bandit mask really set it apart from other animals. When I inquired, she said it was just one of many mixes she has at her kennel and is a Pomerroon.

Now I want to go on record and say I am an animal lover and I hate to see any animal muzzled, but this other “thing” scared the bejeebers out of me and my bride, who upon seeing it nearly fainted from fright. I have a friend who owns two Great Danes and they’re about 150 pounds each, but this animal weighed probably closer to 400 pounds, if it weighed an ounce.

“Whoa Killer, whoa!” she loudly blared as the beast reared up on its two powerful hind legs and growled at us.  Its weighty coat resembled a cheap filthy brown heavy rug and the beast was so profoundly matted, it’s a wonder it could walk. My first impression was the animal was angry – if that is possible.  Both me and my bride took a few steps backwards on the crushed granite trail and I have to tell you, my hand slid downwards toward my legal firearm for a brief second. 

To be honest, I’m not sure a few .45 caliber rounds would suffice in this case.  Its muzzle was made of leather and barbed wire and she jerked back on it and the beast yelped. “He’s really not a bad doggie. He just gets excited when he’s ravenous,” she said and my trembling bride buried her nose between my shoulder blades as I stood my ground wanting and needing the facts for this column.

I do not curse, but what came out of my mouth was something like, “What &*^%$ of an &^%$#@* is that?” She threw her head back and cackled and then calmly explained that “Killer” was a cross between a rare breed of brown Pyrenees found only in one sector of the Czech Republic and a Manchurian Yak calf…dog. “It’s the only one in the world and I have local orders for ten of them as soon as I can find a suitable female to breed to it.”

“People will buy those?” I asked somewhat incredulously, leaving out the words “repulsive beasts”, as my bride trembled behind me.

“Oh yes indeed, kind sir. A doggie like this will go for thousands of koruna, er, uh, I mean dollars.” Her use of the word “koruna” awoke me to the fact that she is from one of the broken Soviet countries and that explained her peculiar heavy brogan shoes, thick gray nylons, and filthy babushka. About this time, the monstrous beast spied a cat across Cary Bayou and struggle as she did, but it broke away and drug her about 160 feet before she dug in those brogans and brought it to a halt with a loud exclamation. I’ll be honest when I say that I didn’t understand the words, but that was probably some serious cussing right there.

I must admit it was a magnificent cross-fit display of brute strength and I made a mental note to call Scott Johnson later and have them back-fill the trench she dug with her heels. The whole time this was going on, the calm little Pomerroon sat beside us and simply gurgled and was as happy as a possum eating persimmon seeds.  I even petted the little fellar, as did my traumatized bride. 

I guess the woman is no stranger to getting down and dirty and she came back grinning and spitting out dirt and debris like it was no big deal. “I better get Killer home and feed him before he gets violent,” she said and my bride and I watched her walk back to the parking lot and neither of us had a word to say as she loaded them into her beat-up old van.

Once again I wondered if David Berkowitz has seen this woman and chronicled her on his Facebook page.  I guess I’ll have to wait and see, but if she has that thing out there again, I’ll know better than to walk a cat.

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