I'm Leah

I’m Leah, and sometimes I’m a very tired certified hearing dog. I seem to always be on the move and even though my Mom and I are both quite small (I’m a Chihuahua and she’s less than five feet tall), we always seem to be doing something that requires me to be active.

She writes and photographs stories about motorsports and also reviews new vehicles. Because of the latter job, every week there’s a new car. Some are more comfortable than others for my little blue bed with the red airline blanket that I got on my first trip to Florida.

Sometimes I get lifted into cars; sometimes I jump. I really like to jump and that always surprises my Mom, Anne Proffit. She thinks because I’m just a six-pound buff and white Chihuahua, I can’t jump. Just ask the black Chihuahuas – we jump way higher than they do. I know, you’re thinking some Wesley Snipes line, aren’t you? White Chihuahuas can’t jump?

But anyway, riding in cars with Mom is always interesting. I know she drives a lot slower than she used to before I came to live here, which s most of the time. I think the only fast drives she has these days are when she doesn’t want pointy ears coming out of the dashboard when she photographs clean cars.

Sometimes she’ll forget I’m there and take a corner aggressively. My bed either goes to the central tunnel or to the door. Like that hip-hop song: From the window to the wall. Then she’ll look over with that soft smile and say, “Sorry babe. Don’t know what came over me.”

I’m learning a lot about cars. Quite a few cars have very plush seats and some others just don’t. You can get comfortable with a hard seat but you have to burrow into your bed a bunch. Now the Chrysler 300C, the second car we had after I came to work with Mom in late November last year, that had plush yet supportive seats. Easy to sleep on, for sure.

I really liked the Mercury Milan hybrid we had for a week and a half in Florida, too. Mom never had to shift her seat around much and I was able to sleep through sheets of rain. We couldn’t hear the radio but we got through safe as houses. I had to lick her face a long time when we stopped; that was a tough drive, even for a pro.

We did a lot of driving in that car, going from Orlando to Melbourne to visit Steve, up to Gainesville in that rain (and tornado warnings) for the NHRA race, back down to Steve’s for a couple of days, then off to Sebring for the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, then back to Orlando so we could fly home. It’s a great place to sleep.

She really likes the sports cars. When we went to Chicago in mid-January, we picked up a Hyundai Genesis coupe with a 3.8-liter V6. Sure there was some remaining snow on the ground but once Mom got into this car and hit the throttle, I knew it was hold-on time. She enjoyed that one – seats weren’t bad either, even though they were firm. The blanket sure helped.

We took that Genesis down to Indianapolis for the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association (AARWBA) annual banquet. Mom’s the western vice president and so we needed to pitch in before it all went down. We stayed with Debbie, Hector (a black Chihuahua) and Sierra, a pointer – also known as “Sierra no!” because she’s always getting into stuff.

Debbie’s got a great house with a built-in bathroom called a yard. We don’t have one of those in Long Beach. We use everybody else’s yards and regularly clean up my poo-poo with bags. We don’t have to do that at Debbie’s but we do have to make sure not to get out of the yard as she’s on a busy street. The space under her back porch is really nice. I like to sniff it out, even in the winter.

The day before the AARWBA banquet, we helped set up the tables at John Force Racing. All the mechanics pitched in to help and I had the best seat in the house. Mom put me on the dais so I could watch everybody else work. It was a nice change from always being on duty. The night of the banquet we tried to find something fancy for me to wear but I ended up with my usual orange vest. It fits, after all. I had my own seat because Debbie had to go to another function. Even got a little chicken to go with my usual dinner. That was cool.

We spent time with our friends Shane and Amy while we were in Indy and even saw Yogi Behr, too. Didn’t drink a lot on this trip – Mom was on such good behavior, especially since they were charging for drinks at the banquet. What’s with that?

To prepare for the racing season, when we got back home Mom took me to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana where the AMA Superbike riders were testing. She took the Mutt Muffs with her to test them for me while we were out on pit road. I don’t like them one bit, but when I shook them off the first time, I realized this was for my own good. I kept trying to scratch my ears when she put the ear protection on me – heck, I still do.

I didn’t mind the sound of the motorcycles but the next weekend, I had to live with the NHRA Full Throttle Series drag racers. But that’s for another time.

My first few weeks

My name is Leah. I’m a Chihuahua – I may be about four and a half years old, but none of my people are really sure.

I was found at the Agoura Hills Animal Shelter by the Sam Simon Foundation, who liked my benign nature and desire to work, so they took me to Malibu and spent five months training to be a certified hearing dog. Actually, my training was completed in a bit less than five months, which makes me a quick learner.

They placed me with Anne Proffit, a journalist and photographer who lives in the tiniest little place in downtown Long Beach – it’s a good thing we’re both really small, you know? Our four days of training went off really well. I did all my jobs, responding to the “hup” sound, the timer, the fire alarm, door knock and the phone. I actually have some problems with the phone, because Anne does not get a lot of phone calls.

But never mind.

Our first week together was kind of placid but then the fun started. Anne – can I call her Mom? – took me to Toyota Speedway at Irwindale the night before Thanksgiving so I could get used to race car sounds. She’s totally into racing of all types. It wasn’t too bad with the USAC Sprints and Midgets; I even met Pancho Carter’s Chihuahua there and went poo-poo together behind the pits.

The next day she took me to Thanksgiving in Laguna Beach. Man, these people do love to party! They drank a lot of wine, ate a lot of food and laughed a lot. We stayed over that night because no way was Mom in any condition to drive home. Me neither! We shared the bed with Christie but she was scared of rolling over on us so she went next door and slept with Robin instead. Bet she finished the bottle of tequila while she was there!

The next week I got subjected to the Los Angeles International Auto Show. We had a guest in town for this event – Carey Russ – and he stayed in our second room on the blow-up bed. It’s fun to have two people to pounce on. Carey nicknamed me “Yoda”, but said I look like a young Yoda, not the old guy in the Star Wars movies.

We rode the Blue Line up and back and we went outside several times so I wouldn’t have any problems in the halls. I walked so much I thought my legs would fall off. They didn’t!
I made lots of new friends at the show, charming them with my stretches. I even calmed Mr Viktor Muller from Spyker Cars, who was just starting to talk with GM about buying Saab. He said the time I sat in his lap (dander notwithstanding) was the best he had at the show. That made me feel good!

After Carey left to go back north, we had a couple of days of peace and quiet. I’m discovering that’s how it goes with Mom. She is either frenetically busy or I’m bored while she works on the computer. But at least she always takes me out for long walks every single day. We usually do between 3-4 miles together, according to her pedometer, so I get enough exercise.

The week after the LA Auto Show, Mom took me on my first trip to Florida for the Performance Racing Industry show. Oh boy, the planes were easy for sleeping and the flight attendants were so nice. They gave me a blanket (I’m still using it with the bed I got at the Foundation) and I can sleep the whole way from LA to Orlando without having to go potty.

(Did I mention that I’m very, very fussy about when, where and how I go potty? When I get off a plane, I don’t just empty my bladder like some mutt. I have to wait until I find just the right spot, even if it takes a couple of hours, and circle several times before I can pee. Even though I am a girl I like to lift a leg. Mom is learning the difference in posture for when I do #1 and when I need to do #2.)

The day before the show started in Orlando, they had a Roundtable and I got to meet Robert Davis, who heads up Mazda Motorsport. He sure knows how to stroke a girl and we get along so well. Whenever we meet up with him now, he always volunteers to take care of me so Mom can go do interviews. How cool is that?

The first morning at the PRI show, we were late because the bus driver didn’t come on time and Mom was ticked. She was supposed to meet friends for breakfast so we were rushing trying to get to the breakfast (I just wanted to have a morsel or two off her plate). Somebody kept calling her name and she didn’t respond – she is deaf after all – so I just stopped and looked toward the sound. She was so shocked and appreciative. It made me feel good!

She dragged me all over the floor – I think there were 1000 exhibits and she had to pick me up occasionally so I wouldn’t get trampled. It was really, really exhausting. Thank goodness she brought my bed everywhere we went so I had a familiar place to rest. Every night we went out and partied. She had a lot of fun with her friends and I got my ears and back rubbed by some very nice people.

The only thing I didn’t like were the karts, although I really liked meeting Tonio Liuzzi. He’s so nice. They made the worst sounds and smoked a lot. Because the noise bothered me, her friend Ray said to get me some Mutt Muffs. She did and we’ll talk about that later.

After the show we went to spend the night with her friend Steve in Melbourne before flying home. He lives on the beach and that was cool. Steve and Mom drank a lot of wine and laughed a lot (but they didn’t make out… I’ve been waiting to see if she ever does) and she was a wee bit hung over when we drove back to the airport the next day.

That was it for traveling, pretty much, but it was fun getting upgraded on the flight back from Orlando. We did go to Christie’s for New Year’s – actually the day afterwards. I really like it at her place in the desert. She’s got one old dog named Scarlett Begonia that everyone calls Lollipop, a cat named Chairman Mao that I can torment and a llama whose name Mom always forgets. There used to be three llamas, but only one remains.

Anyway, it’s so cool to be able to go off-leash out at Christie’s place, except Mom doesn’t let me go out by myself at night. There are coyotes and mountain lions out there and I am a rather small creature after all. I can bark and hold my own with other dogs and Chairman (I just love to scare him) the cat, but don’t think I could survive mountain lions and coyotes on my own.

© 2010 Leah the Certified Hearing Dog