The Trials of Mango

As I frantically grabbed Mango’s harness to jerk her up and above the snarling, leaping jaws of her first beach dog opponent, I recall being stunned both by the screaming of onlookers and the viciousness of the fight itself. Who is this dog? What happened to our sweet girl?

During her second fight I slipped as I reached to yank her from that blur of snapping teeth, and so my hand emerged pitted with bloody puncture wounds. And it was then I began to waver. How has this apparently fearsome dog managed to so suddenly swarm and swamp my life, flooding me with an anxious, pulling love, bending our business, filtering every travel plan, a thief of both our time and hearts?

Was she a blessing or an unforced error?

It was Easter Eve morning, 2019, when Mango seduced Jill and I on a Mexico sidewalk, then found herself leashed to our lives, and our business.

We were sipping strong coffee in the early morning sun, perched on red plastic stools with my brother John, his wife and their two dogs outside a small neighborhood cafe on “Menudo Row'' in Patzcuaro, a weathered Spanish colonial town of craft markets, old churches and bustling plazas in the state of Michoacan that dates back to the Cortez era 1320s. We came both to visit family and escape the cacophony fronting our tiny home along the destination beach playground called Sayulita, where crowds pour in from all over Mexico and abroad to play and party with boombox abandon during Semana Santa, the Easter holiday week. Patzcuaro, sitting above 7000 feet in the lake region of Michoacan, a state famous for avocados, artisans and, alas, cartel violence, has remained a relatively peaceful haven, known for its traditional Easter festivities and an annual outdoor craft market that attracts artisans and buyers from throughout Mexico.

We’d been flirting with launching an online store to feature handmade crafts from Mexico, and had hopes that the Patzcuaro Easter Market might provide inspiration.

Little did we expect that inspiration would instead arrive in the wild heart of a young street dog.

Over breakfast we watched the town coming alive to prep for the colorful Easter procession that would later stream reverentially through the central plaza. I was in the midst of filling a warm tortilla with eggs, avocado and a fiery salsa when I noticed a cute pup ambling up the road, dodging trucks and motorcycles, weary and collarless, hunting for bites of whatever fortune might offer. She caught my glance, paused and delivered a sad, hesitant brown-eyed look of longing, as if to say, “Kind sir, would you spare a bite for a hungry pup?”

Before I knew it she was resting her chin softly on my thigh, eyes up, flirting and hopeful, offering the world for the stuffed tortilla rolled in my hand. Brother John was frowning and shaking his head while his two dogs, Dulce, a young ex-street rescue Chihuahua and Figaro, a huge old labradoodle lover, were not pleased with this young interloper and together growled a wary warning. John gave my new friend a practiced shooing kick but she deftly avoided him, her eyes locked on mine. She instinctively knew her target, sensed the weak link, and I found myself resting an encouraging arm around her, like, “Stick with me, babe.”

Her thick black fur, though mottled with dust on her lean frame, had a silky feel as I massaged my fingers along her back. I was smitten by her Oreo coloring, white paws accenting her black coat like painted white socks, the bright white heart-shaped patch on her chest, all punctuated by her long bushy black tail, the tip dipped white like a paintbrush.

I ended up sharing most of my tortillas and eggs with her, charmed by the gentle way she mouthed the food from my hand. She then smoothly shifted to Jill and, like the natural deal closer she is, placed a paw on Jill’s lap, stretched and gave her neck a kiss.

‘You know you are sharing more than your food,’ said John, still shaking his head, but now with a small knowing smile.

As we began our walk up the hill to our grassy RV camp, our new friend started to tentatively tag along, but I tried to ignore the familiar tug, deflecting the hook trying to sink into my heart. As if preordained, just ahead Jill found herself standing outside a small mercantile, and from the sidewalk we could see just steps away a selection of dog leashes and collars hanging from the shop ceiling, testing our resistance.

No.

Should we? No.

For several years we have been living and working in a small trailer along the beach in Sayulita, straining to keep afloat various startup ventures that behaved like autistic pups themselves, and now we had a new online store in mind. The small, cheap dinette table that serves as our headquarters is congested with monitors and wires and scribbled to-do notes, our emotions too often brim with a startup anxiety that can flood our waking hours, making sleep elusive, tequila a too frequent medicinal.

We need to stay free, we told ourselves, unencumbered, focused on business. Inviting a Mexico street pup into this environment seemed like opening our trailer door to a perpetual hurricane. Made no sense at all.

Yet there we again found ourselves at that familiar Mexico crossroads, where lonely, bony street dogs longing for human love are heartbreakingly plentiful, warily circling outdoor cafes where they hungrily compete for scraps and handouts from bleeding hearts.

Walk away, I told myself, as I had done almost daily for years. Resist!

But when my eyes met Jill’s in front of that shop, I could see that, like my warm tortillas, our young friend had already consumed the flimsy defences surrounding our hearts. And so Jill turned, bought that leash and collar, and in that moment our three lives pivoted.

Early that night, huddled in our truck camper, she had her first squirming bath, followed by a thrilling session with a squeaky stuffed toy bunny. Our new roommate then hopped contentedly up onto the dinette cushion, and yawned.

Perhaps because she was finally off the street, no threats about, no roaming dog packs to hide from in the night, she felt safe to truly relax, maybe for the first time in her young life.

She rolled onto her back, legs up and spread, fully vulnerable, trusting, and closed her eyes.

She didn’t move for 12 hours.

When finally she awoke, we all hugged and giggled and felt lucky to be sharing our morning together. It was then that we formally pronounced her,

"Mango Lucky Easter Moon Patzcuaro the Boho Dog."

Mango for short.

(Sometimes “Mangolita” when we want to be gender-correct.)

Mango later took her first drive with us, a winding 8 hour journey west down the mountains, through Guadalajara and back to our trailer on the beach in Sayulita. Along the way she trembled and shook, even made a leap for the open window when we stopped to pay a toll. Late that afternoon we finally rolled into Sayulita, a bit rattled, uncertain but unscathed.

After a few tentative steps, Mango began to explore Sayulita beach dog life.

And soon became the inspiration, co-founder, brand ambassador and diva supermodel for our next venture.

In Sayulita we had befriended a struggling Huichol Indian shaman called Andres who, like many of the native Huichols that have for centuries dwelled in the nearby Sierra Madre mountains, was trying to scratch out a living selling his hand-beaded creations to tourists lounging along the beach. He had recently begun making colorfully designed hand-beaded dog collars featuring traditional Huichol symbolism, and we got one for Mango. We began seeing other dogs about town wearing them, and tourists would stop us to admire Mango and ask where we got that collar.

We fell in love with those collars, and loved how Mango modeled them. What if together we could help market them to the world? We’ll build an online store featuring Mango in her collars that could help support Huichol artisans like Andres and other local creatives, and maybe donate some profits to the small volunteer animal clinics in Mexico that care for street dogs.

And so, with Mango’s help, the Boho Mango store was born.

We had more collars made, built a website to market them, and during our daily product photo shoots Mango the Boho Diva emerged. She quickly embraced the role of diva supermodel, particularly when she realized a good beach pose was usually rewarded with a slice of jerky. We added other doggy models and their humans to the mix, but Mangolita remained the go-to face of the store.

That concern about adding hurricane Mango to the chaos of our tiny trailer startup lives? As we learned how to live together, it required some normal and not so normal adjustment. She brought an explosion of both energy and need to our lives, but also a kind of trouble we hadn’t (but should have) anticipated.

We soon learned that Mango will not be denied when she desires attention, to the point where she’ll rest her head on our keyboards to prevent us from typing when she thinks we need a break, or will swat our iPhones away with her paw when we ignore her demands. Yes, she can be distracting, disruptive and persistently interruptive. Yes she hogs the bed. We sometimes push her away in frustration, but her thick street dog skin is rarely dissuaded. Many times a day she commands us to rise from our laptops, stubbornly insisting that we drop everything and take her out on the beach, work be damned.

Before Mango our exercise came mainly from occasionally surfing and swimming, but when facing deadlines we’d sometimes find ourselves going hours without rising from our screens. We didn’t often take long walks along the beach, and if we did it was usually a lazy happy hour stroll to a nearby beach bar.

Now?

Every morning we make the long trek down through the sand to the end of the beach with Mango, often at a fast walk or jog, dodging dead fish and sharp driftwood, sometimes several times a day. I found that on average we take between 9 -12,000 steps a day with Mango, sometimes many more.

Just now I did the math - Mango has been with us for about 30 months, or 900 days x 9000 steps = 8.1 million steps minimum she’s added to our lives(!)

We added “Personal Trainer” to her expanding title.

But as many who’ve adopted dogs off the Mexico streets have discovered, it’s not always all bueno kisses and wagging love. These dogs grow up having to fight to survive, and while you can take the dog off the street, it can be a long, emotional and sometimes frightening challenge weaning the street out of the dog.

Sayulita beach does not always ease this path. While some days it can be like dog park heaven by the sea, where dogs can frolic and chase and run untethered and free, other days it can be an extreme, temptation-rich environment full of distractions both myriad and sometimes dangerous. Mango usually enjoys running and splashing with some of the other street dogs we meet on our walks, but sometimes packs form to bully the weak, and more aggressive dogs wander menacingly down to the beach as well, like hugely muscled, spike-collared pit bulls that look like they’ve just gone 12 rounds. The shoreline is sometimes sprinkled with reeking gillnet rejects like dead puffer fish, poisonous sea snakes and long fat eels, their fly-covered guts like the welcome gift of a seafood buffet for the likes of street dog Mango. Stinging wasps hop along the sand as Mango snaps at them, pelicans fly by in low formation while shore fishermen wildly cast their lures, their backswings zipping their treble hooks blindly through the air behind them, too near the running dogs who race and chase close by in pursuit of birds, smaller dogs, soccer balls and frisbees flying about.

The relatively free, anything-goes spirit that pervades Mexico is often exhilarating, but sometimes crosses the line into the dangerously absurd. One afternoon an old cowboy strolled out onto the sand in front of us carrying a big-gulp beer and accompanied by an adolescent tiger held only by a frayed rope leash. As he chatted and drank with curious onlookers he paid little attention to the tiger, who was now roaming freely, his paws leaving tracks in the sand about the size of Mango’s head.

We kept Mango inside the trailer.

When Mango got into her first fight, an explosive battle with a beach dog called Max, formerly one of her best doggy pals, we were startled by her burst of wild ferocity. How quickly some friendly wrestling sparked what seemed a to-the-death war, apparently because Mango jealously caught Max sniffing the treats in my pocket. After too many brawls like this we began to wonder whether we’d made a big mistake bringing her to Sayulita.

Besides the anxiety caused by her fights, during our leash-free photo shoots she sometimes ignored our pleas to “STAY,” ran off and entertained herself by stalking birds and sometimes joggers she’d spot trotting in the distance. It was all in fun for her, and while the more dog friendly runners generously laughed it off, other joggers were not so forgiving. Ears back, sprinting fast and low to the ground like a cheetah targeting a gazelle through tall grass, she liked to leap up and surprise the runners, sometimes from behind, and sometimes scratching their legs with her long nails, drawing screams and threats and angry boyfriends. One guy who she cornered and jumped on followed us home, yelling “policia! policia!”.

She has a particular aversion to skateboarders. Maybe they harassed her as a Patzcuaro street pup? She lunges at them when they fly by us on the streets, seemingly wanting to eat the kids and their boards too.

Early on I was so troubled by her behavior that, despite our growing bond, I found myself painfully considering the unthinkable. Maybe for her own good we should find her another home, with people of a more stable life? Somewhere calmer, with a fenced yard. Or maybe this dog is at heart untameable, hardwired for the street, a wild animal not meant for domestication? Maybe she’s just frustrated by our tiny trailer, our obsessively compact office lives, too often leashed and held back while surrounded by all the temptation Sayulita presents. Maybe she misses her free street life?

Then Jill would remind me that, no, she belongs with us, we love her and besides, she’s our partner and co-founder! Without Mango there is no Boho Mango.

We can and will help her to behave better, we decided.

So we set out to train our temperamental supermodel, and continue to do so. We lean toward positive reinforcement, reward good behavior with a variety of treats, and work daily on fundamental voice commands, like “sit”, “stay” and “leave it” (especially when a jogger trots by). We learned from professional dog whisperers and listened to many wannabes who passed along a well meaning but mixed bucket of tips.

We also gazed jealously at dogs that walk peacefully off-leash by their humans’ sides all about town, as is common in Mexico. Voice responsive, not the least concerned with skateboarders or joggers or the delicious lure of spilled garbage, a threat to no one, just happy to be alive and together. They see us sometimes struggling with Mango and suggest, why not just set her free?

Easy to say.

Still, this is Mexico.

When in Rome...

As our training made some slow progress, and when we judged beach circumstances to be right, we began experimenting with occasionally letting Mango run loose. We discovered she also loves to chase flying things, like the herons and seagulls that patrol the shoreline and congregate along the river, but also the whining drones that tourists like to fly, and most of all the motorized paragliders that in the late afternoons cruise up the Sayulita shore with their buzzing fan-like propellers strapped to their backs.

When her sensitive ear detects the buzz of a paraglider approaching, sometimes from hundreds of meters away, Mango’s excitement overflows. She commences trembling and yelping, straining for release. One day we finally succumbed and freed her to chase the glider up and down the beach. Her radar locked in on the flying man and she became a blur of speed, sprinting all the way down the shore and beyond our sight, oblivious to other dogs that began racing along behind her, to the very end and all the way back, hoping to grab a drooping leg apparently (we’ve warned the flyers to not cruise too low or else Mango might become a dangling passenger). Now she expects to be freed for that chase whenever paragliders appear, and has become locally famous as a result. Other beach residents enjoy the show, yelling, “Release the Mango!” when they spot a paraglider gliding in from a distance, marveling as her long strides rocket her like a heat-seeking missile down the shoreline in pursuit.

To our great relief we found that, when we do let her run freely off-leash, she does eventually come trotting back. It might be a few minutes or an hour later, she may first wander into the jungle to explore or hang under an umbrella with some tourists, angling for a share of their tamales. Sometimes she returns proudly drenched in the suffocating scent of some putrid dead fish she’d found to roll in.

But she always returns, exhausted and happy.

We also discovered that, if she is off-leash and we are not so nearby, she feels little need to protect and so has no issues with other dogs. Eureka!

As dogs grow older they tend to nap more as their frenzied puppy energy subsides. While Mango’s street instincts may never fully be tamed, she has grown to appreciate the sublime comforts of a soft sofa. Gradually she’s become easier to predict and keep out of trouble. She’s more aware of what’s okay and not, and she more often responds to our voice commands. She now mostly resists chasing joggers, and while she will likely always have the potential to get into it with other dogs if she feels at all threatened, and skateboards, drones, paragliders, bunnies and squirrels remain irresistible, we’ve learned to spot the triggers and how to avoid scenes that might get us all in hot water.

“About 90% good”, we say when asked.

She remains the spirit of the Boho Mango Store.

Pre-pandemic we embarked with Mango on a long coast-to-coast drive across the United States to visit surf shops and other suitably independent retailers in California, through Colorado and Nebraska and Iowa, to Brooklyn and then Florida, then back through the southern states and all the way back to Sayulita. We aimed to introduce the Huichol collars and hopefully get some orders. When allowed, Mango entered the shops with us wearing her beautiful collars, charming buyers and helping close deals. We also visited many dog parks along the way to give her some off-leash time, and Mango mingled and played and ran with dogs all over the country, through tall corn fields and crowded city parks without issue while showing off her wares. She discovered a love for chasing California squirrels, Colorado prairie dogs and even a gang of Rocky Mountain elk, hip Brooklyn dog park pups and southwestern jack rabbits.

I no longer think about giving Mango away.

Some generous relatives recently invited us to spend next Easter week with them on a luxury cruise about the Tahitian islands, a dream trip, a fantasy. Yet, though it is months away, already I wrestle with guilt as I anticipate the moment of leaving Mango behind. I foresee the pain of confused abandonment in her eyes and I become unsure if I can take this trip. Sounds crazy I know, it would only be for a few days, most do not understand, “she’s just a dog” they say, "be serious!" My son thinks me dog-deranged.

We lost both my brother John and his dog Figaro last year, their ashes now spread about Patzcuaro, and another brother passed just a few months previous. Just writing that begins to sink me. The pandemic, which prevented both hospital visits and the closure of in-person memorials, also shut many of the shops we’d visited with Mango previously, and so our business hopes again wane like a receding tide.

But here Mango comes, nudging my wrist from the keyboard with her cold wet nose, in her eyes an inviting smile, adorned handsomely in her Huichol rainforest collar and matching beaded harness (a prototype she is beta testing). She nudges me again, harder, batting away my melancholy, insisting I rise, shut that laptop, move forward, get Jill and together we’ll explore that glorious outside, smell and breathe in that salty fresh air, maybe hunt some squirrels through the palm trees, chase some shore birds if we’re lucky. Let's live!