What's with small dogs?

(This is Lilly. Notice her spiked collar.)

A few weeks back, I was actually about 10 minutes late to work (but I stayed 10 minutes late, of course) because of a very small problem. Or problems. Three to be exact.

It was my grandmother's little dogs. They are each less than a foot tall, but they think they run things on their block out in Doyline. Two are chihuahuas (actually, one of those is mine -- she gets to go visit sometimes) and the other is a chihuahua-schnauzer mix.

On my tardy day, they were actually chasing an almost-grown German shepherd mix out of Granny's yard and into the nearby schoolyard. I think the other dog just wanted to play, but these girls -- yes we call them the girls -- don't mess around. They wouldn't get 10 feet back into their one yard before they would run back across the street and chase the other poor dog nearly into the shop building. (What? You didn't have wood-working and mechanics class at your school?)

So the shop teacher came outside to see what the fuss was about, and so did Granny. She didn't want me to leave until those dogs stopped terrorizing the neighborhood and interrupting school. It took about 20 minutes for me to snatch up all the little dogs and lock them on the back porch.

Seriously, if these were bigger dogs, they would be dangerous. They are so protective of their territory. Pit bulls, rottweilers and others have bad reputations, but if these little yippers had half their size, they would really be known menaces.

They're viscioius, but they're still pretty cute.

(Again, the elusive Lilly. This makes me look like a really bad photographer, but she could tell everytime the camera was about to click and she'd jump out of the way. I barely caught her here.)