Do a story on Chico, the Chihuahua born with only two legs?

Of course, you can do a story on Chico, Katherine Hosszu tells me.

"He loves the attention. He thinks he's a celebrity. He'd give out autographs if he could."

But he can't. He can't write. He's a dog, after all. But it's more than that; as friendly as he is — he's very friendly and licks my arm very amicably — you can't shake his paw. He's got no forelegs. He was born without them.

But can he ever get around. Two ways. He pushes himself along with his hindquarters, busy haunches, churning back legs, spearing his body and head along on the ground. Or else he stands on his hind legs and kind of lurches steadily forward, looking a bit like a minuscule T-Rex. He has only two tiny nubs where his forelegs would be.

"It was some kind of birth defect," Katherine speculates.

She heard about Chico from a friend, who heard about him from a friend, who would look after him sometimes when Chico's original owner was away, which was a lot.

"I never met the original owner," Katherine tells me, "but I think he was some kind of truck driver. He kept Chico in a cage mostly.

"I don't know if it's true, but the rumour was the owner was hoping to use Chico to breed two-legged Chihuahuas (as a novelty) but when he realized that was impossible he was going to put him down."

Katherine, who has a heart of gold and has a real soft spot for animals, said no way; she'd take him. The friend of the friend got Chico to her and they've been in love with each other ever since.

Chico is seven years old now and has spent almost all of his life with Katherine and Katherine's husband, John, who loves Chico equally well.

"John takes Chico up to the cottage on Manitoulin Island," says Katherine. "He sends back photographs, not of the work he's doing at the cottage but of Chico lying cute on the couch or running around the fire pit."

I speak with Katherine on the porch of her Cannon Street East home, overlooking the attractive lawn and garden, and virtually everyone who walks by and gets a look at Chico breaks out in a broad smile.

"The little kids coming home from school always stop and they want to pet him," says Katherine. Chico eats it all up. He can't get enough.

"The ladies who walk by like to pick him up and hold him like a baby."

He's a neighbourhood star. "On Halloween, kids take candies out of their bags and give them to Chico."

Chico has to share John and Katherine's affections with Trouble the cat. But he doesn't mind. The two of them love playing together.

"It's funny," says Katherine. "Chico chases her around and, when the cat's had enough, she puts her paw on his head and holds it down and licks his face. Oh, he doesn't like that."

Some people have asked the Hosszus if they've ever thought of rigging up some kind of wheeled apparatus to compensate for Chico's shortcomings up front. But no dice.

"John says no dog of mine is going to go around in a stroller. He has this pouch that he carries Chico around in when he takes him out for a walk," says Katherine. "It's a chick magnet. John loves it."

Chico takes his place, it turns out, in a long line of other-ly abled animals in Katherine's life.

"I've always had animals, from the time I was a little girl — cats, dogs, birds, hamster. I had Jack the one-eyed cat, Stevie the born-deaf Keeshond, a one-legged bird. And a goldfish that swam upside down. Everyone thought it was dead."

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

She says that sometimes she puts cream on Chico's chest because it gets chafed from rubbing on the ground so much. But, generally, he makes out just fine.

He's the happiest dog, says Katherine.

"He doesn't know he's supposed to have four legs."