By M.V. Moorhead
In January, our Chihuahua Eddie passed on. He had been with us since 2012, when my wife and daughter saw his pitiful, forlorn, bewildered, emaciated, one-eyed face on TV, and we went to get him.
The show on which they saw him, of course, was Channel 3’s Pets on Parade, the TV forum of the Arizona Humane Society. Along with pet care tips, it features a selection of cats, dogs and other creatures available for adoption. It grew out of AHS volunteer Marge Wright’s appearances on The Wallace and Ladmo Show before becoming its own show, and over the decades has claimed the title of Arizona’s longest-running homegrown TV program.
The wife and kid had watched a recording of the show and then showed it to me. I pronounced that I would call the shelter, and in the event that Eddie had not already been claimed – which I thought was unlikely, in view of his soulful face – we would request him.
He had not been claimed. Indeed, I was told that he was the only creature from that edition of the show that had gone unadopted. Maybe because he was missing an eye? To us, it only made him more distinctive.
For whatever reason, he was still in the shelter when we went to AHS the following day, bringing along Lily, the Chihuahua who already lived with us, to offer her opinion of Eddie. We were led back to the kennel by a genial, smiling bald man named Perry Fanzo. This was, for us, a celebrity encounter; we knew Fanzo very well as one of Pets on Parade’s more popular presenters.
Eddie showed no enthusiasm for leaving his kennel, but Fanzo, referring to him as “Eduardo,” gently persuaded him to come out into a back room. Lily and Eddie were placed nose to nose, stared at each other for a few seconds, then lifted their legs and left puddles on the floor; apparently the Chihuahua equivalent of exchanging business cards.
“The rules are different with Chihuahuas,” Fanzo observed good-naturedly.
This certainly proved true. Eddie’s transition into our house was difficult. According to the AHS folks, he had been found wandering the streets in South Phoenix with his left eye hanging out. It was decided that the eyeball couldn’t be salvaged, so it was removed. This didn’t seem to incommode him particularly; indeed, we thought it gave him a rather raffish look.
He continued to pee on the floor frequently, however. With time and patience, he got better about this, but Lily, our previous Chihuahua, bullied him, and later we added a third Chihuahua, Sadie, who joined in the fun of snarling at him and chasing him around the back yard. In the end they all became comfortable companions, but it must be admitted that Eddie didn’t seem too inconsolably debilitated by grief when, over the course of time, the other two Chihuahuas passed on and he was left Last Chihuahua Standing in the house.
Even so, the poor guy suffered terribly from separation anxiety and neediness throughout his years with us. We loved him greatly, and tried – and succeeded, I hope – to bring some comfort and enjoyment to his life.
But we were only in a position to do so because of people like Perry Fanzo and his colleagues at AHS. We were saddened to learn that Fanzo had passed on, at 67, in February, only a few weeks after the dog to whom he had introduced us.
A retired Honeywell software engineer, golfer and traveling enthusiast, the Scottsdale resident, originally from Pittsburgh, spent more than 20 years as a volunteer both on and off camera, walking, fostering and facilitating the adoptions of countless dogs, cats and rabbits. In 2023 he received the President’s Volunteer Service Award from Joe Biden.
The day we met Fanzo, back in 2012, I asked him if I might interview him for PHOENIX magazine. He politely demurred, not wishing to hog the spotlight, and asked if I would consider interviewing a different deserving volunteer. I probably should have, but I never followed up.
Anyway, Perry Fanzo was a boon to our community and will be missed. I like to think of our Eddie among the throng of grateful creatures that welcomed him to the other side.
