Right away Chunk and I understood each other. He couldn't do it. He squatted to drop his deuce, then looked at me, then stood back up and ran over to me. I even let him off his leash to allow extra relaxation, but as long as he could smell me, he refused to shadoobie.

The most amazing part was that he was free to escape me permanently but would keep running back to me. I had never had a dog in my life that didn't try to escape when presented with the opportunity, although, in complete fairness, I would have left our family, too, had I had the financial capabilities. Anytime Mutley or Whitefoot, the dogs from my childhood, got loose, we'd have to get into the car and drive around the neighborhood, leaning on the horn, trying to trick the dog into coming back. "Come on, Whitefoot, let's go for a ride," my dad would yell through a megaphone he stole from my softball practice. "Get in the goddamned car!"

When Ted arrived home that night, I said, "Chunk, this is Chunk." Then I turned to Ted and said, "Chunk, meet Chunk."

"What is that?" Ted asked.

"It's a cat."

"Whose is it?"

"He's ours now."

"Very funny. Whose dog is it?"

"He is our dog. I captured him. They were going to assassinate him, Ted. He was going to be put in the electric chair. He's a rescue, like Chuy."

"Chelsea, can you cut the shit, please? We've already had one dog escapade this year. I'm not really in the mood to deal with Dudley Part Deux. You don't even like dogs."

"There is no shit to cut. This was a moment of weakness born out of a moment of detoxification. I like this dog. He seems to understand me and the pickle I've found myself in."

"What pickle is that?"

I eyed Ted and cocked my head to the side. "Wanting someone to snuggle with who doesn't speak."

"Did it ever occur to you to maybe ask me if I wanted to weigh in on the decision, since I live here, too?"

"Not really."

"Chelsea, a dog is a big decision, and we both travel all the time. Who do you think is going to take care of it?"

"Ray is moving here in three days. He loves dogs. It will be his welcoming gift, just like my father's frozen calamari for the renters on the Vineyard. My brother loves dogs."

Ted darted his eyes back and forth between the dog and me, not knowing what to believe. "I'm not stupid. You obviously borrowed the dog from someone."

"Who would I borrow a dog from? You don't borrow dogs from people. You either steal them or find them. Since when are there loaner dogs available?"

"Chelsea, please stop. I've had a long day, and I'm really just not in the mood. This is like that mini-horse you said you were buying for your sister." The mini-horse he was referencing was not a joke at all, and if it was, the joke ended up being on me.

Chuy and I had to take our annual Christmas photo, and one of my producers suggested bringing in a mini-horse he knew about that maybe Chuy could ride. The horse was about three feet tall, and upon sight I made an offer to his trainer, Bruce, to purchase him. Bruce was a giant dick and feigned surprise bordering on disgust when I asked him how much he wanted for the horse.

"This little fella's not for sale," he informed me. "They take a lot of work, a lot of attention," he said with a snicker. Then he added, "And they don't like vodka."

I wanted to kick Bruce in the taint. No one is just one thing. Many things contribute to the whole of a person, and just because vodka accounts for 50 percent of my body weight, that doesn't mean I walk around with a vodka drip, forcing every plant, person, or animal to imbibe. I've always had a disliking for animal trainers, and this guy cemented my theory that people who chaperone animals for a living have never had a girl sit on their face.

I went upstairs after my little incident with the Bruce photo and Googled "mini-horse." There turned out to be several Web sites and several mini-horses available for purchase, and I didn't need some animal trainer to approve the purchase. I learned that, just as with dwarfs, there was some sort of chromosomal deficiency that made these horses so small. I felt an instant connection to these miniature horses because of my work with Chuy, and I needed to have full access to one as soon as possible.

After more research I discovered that it is legal to have a mini-horse as a house pet, as long as you have a backyard that meets certain measurements. Not only did my sister Sloane's yard meet the requirements, but she also had a little girl named Charley, along with a newborn named Russell, whose head Charley liked to squeeze on a semiregular basis. This would be the perfect outlet for her to take her frustrations out on, allowing Sloane more time to figure out why all her babies were born with flat heads.

I called Sloane and gave her the news. "Charley can ride it all day long, and the only thing you have to do is get a fence in your backyard."

She went online to check out the horse and was ecstatic. "Oh, my God! They're so adorable! Why don't you get one?"

"Because, Sloane, I live in a building. I have no yard. They need to be ridden."

"But what about Buddy?"

Buddy was my sister's cat who had been missing for two years. "Sloane, Buddy is gone, and he's not coming back. He could be halfway to Arkansas by now."

"Well, he'd be way past Arkansas by now."

"You don't know that. You don't know what that cat's dreams were. He could have settled in the Midwest. What do you have against Middle America, Sloane?"

"First of all, he's on the Vineyard, because that's where we lost him, so unless he took the ferryboat across to the mainland, he's on the island. Mike and I are going to look again this summer."

"Well, good luck with that plan. In the meantime I see a mini-horse in your future."

Sloane and Mike losing their cat was as predictable in my view as Donny and Marie Osmond making love. They took the cat from a friend who was divorcing and moving into an apartment building that didn't allow animals. I liked the cat because he was significantly overweight and orange, my favorite color for cats, but it was still a cat and basically might as well have been an iguana. Charley terrorized the poor thing, always pulling on its tail and chasing it. The cat's new life sucked. I knew it, Sloane knew it, even my father knew it. "That cat's gonna head for the hills the minute he sees an opportunity. Don't take that cat to the Vineyard if you want to keep him. The very instant he sees the view from our house, he's going to want to live at the beach." The fact that cats hate water and the beach, and could therefore give two shits about an ocean view escaped him-another example of my father believing that anyone who set foot on his land would most surely want to take up full-time residence there.

"What if Buddy does come back, though, and the horse eats him?" Sloane asked me.

"Horses do not eat cats. Coyotes eat cats, and snakes eat cats. Snakes eat people, too, but we're losing focus-we're not getting you a snake. I'll get you the horse, we'll get a big fence to encompass your yard, and I think they just eat grass and hay, right? You'll have to clean up his dumps, which according to my research shouldn't be that massive, but that sounds like a job for Mike."

We agreed I would move forward with the purchase of the mini-horse and have it sent to New Jersey. It was impossible to choose one because they were all so amazing, but I finally selected a little brown nugget horse whose name was Simon. I was hoping to come across one named Bruce, but there was no such luck. I called everyone I knew to tell them about the Web site. Ted, of course, thought the whole thing was a dumb idea. "They're going to get sick of that horse in a week, and Charley will poke it in the eye. The horse will be miserable, and so will Sloane. You don't get something just because it's cute, Chelsea. You have to think things through. This is why I'm never taking you to Africa."