LIFE'S A BEACH FOR WONDER DOG TUBA

By Mike Latta

Move over Lassie and Rin Tin Tin. Walt Disney would have loved this beach dog, Tuba, for her life has been one of adventure, bravery and survival. If she could talk, Tuba would tell you that she was born on Deer Island—in fact, her mother and son still live there. But since Joyce and Paul Petti have adopted her, they can tell her story. “Anyone who has been here for the past 10 years and frequents the beach in front of Las Flores Suites will know Tuba,” Paul explains. And according to Paul and Joyce, Tuba is the most photographed dog in the world. “Some people tell us they have albums full of shots of her,” Paul says. “Having Tuba for a pet is like having a movie star for a daughter.” In trying to describe her breed, Paul calls her a Mexican Shepherd. “Her mother is larger than Tuba, and her son is brown and white and looks a lot like a Pit Bull,” he says. Juan and Oscar, the beach boys who rent hobbycats and kayaks, both know Tuba and her family. According to Paul, Oscar was father to Tuba for the first eight years of her life. And since he was the father, Paul and Joyce refer to themselves as Grandpa and Grandma. “Juan is her best friend,” says Paul. “They fish together.” When Tuba lived exclusively on the beach, she often jumped on a kayak or hobbycat and hitched a ride to Deer Island, according to Paul. That is, after she’d had her fill of treats from doting beach people. Juan and Oscar told Joyce and Paul that she had had two litters of pups on the beach before she was three years old. She used to dig under the kayaks to sleep at night and had one litter of nine pups under a kayak, according to Paul. “But it rained heavily that night,” he recalls. “The rain filled the hole and all the pups drowned.” It was after her second litter that a kindly woman from Phoenix took Tuba to be spayed. And that woman still comes to visit Tuba, Paul says. Paul and Joyce have been coming to Mazatlán since 1978. They originally lived in California for more than 30 years, but now have a permanent residence in Austin, Texas. “We have stayed in every hotel along the Mazatlán beach except El Cid,” Paul says. They stayed at

Los Flores for several years before renting an apartment for the past five years. So they have known Tuba her entire life. They know how she got the various scars: the one over her eye is from a jet-ski. “Last year a sting-ray got her while she was fishing,” Paul says. “It cut her and she was bleeding badly, but no one was making a move to help her.” Paul and Joyce took her to the vet and had her stitched up. Three years ago, Paul and Joyce decided to foster Tuba, which at that time meant that they would get her vaccinated, provide food for her—both while they were here in Mazatlán and also when they returned to Austin. Tuba´s home was still the beach then, but soon after it expanded into full-time adoption. Two years ago, according to Paul, a guest at Las Flores complained to the management about Tuba’s barking. “The owner asked Joyce and me if we would take Tuba to our apartment for the two weeks while the ‘bitching guest’ was there,” Paul says, chuckling. “That was his downfall. We took her home, fell in love with her and have had her ever since.” How does a loner like Tuba take to being domesticated? “She’s comfortable in the house,” Paul says. “She used to need to go out in the middle of the night, and she would come to my side of the bed and whine.” He says that she has never had an accident in the house. “Here she is good at fishing, and now she has become a real hunter since she’s been to Austin,” Joyce explains. “There she’s found squirrels and rabbits to hunt. But she hunts rabbits like a cat would, waiting for hours for the rabbit to come out of its hole.” “She’s so intelligent, it’s unbelievable,” Paul says. She is now a graduate of an eight-week obedience class that she attended in Austin last summer. She sits, shakes a paw and comes when she’s called. Sometimes, Paul says, grinning. The back seat of the car is hers, where she sits on a folded-up queen-sized comforter. A loveseat has her name on it at their home in Austin, but regardless of all these domestic comforts, Paul says they are still reluctant to say they own her. “She really belongs to the beach in front of Las Flores,” he says. With her extended family of beach boys and tourists who know and love her.

 

 

 

 

 

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