Snarling Chihuahuas, Poorly Spelled Threats

It was an unpredictable year -- but there are, after all, a few certainties in life. The list of 2003’s oddest news and weirdest moments is topped with the usual suspects: animals, dumb criminals and politicians.

As in years past, it was the plight of the animal that evoked our sympathy.

This fall, the saga of 236 Chihuahuas gone bad sparked a candlelight vigil and a life-or-death court case. The dogs, which had not been socialized, were confiscated from an Acton ranch after the feral, feisty beasts were found attacking and even killing one another.

They were destined for destruction, but Burbank-based Chihuahua Rescue argued that the “angels on death row” could be rehabilitated. All they needed, the group said, was a little love and patience. In August, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge likened the petite pooches to abused children and released some of them to the group, which promised to find them homes. So maybe all dogs really do go to heaven.

Chickens, though, are another story.

In San Diego County, a Valley Center egg ranch dumped 30,000 live hens into a wood chipper.

There was some debate over whose idea it was. Ranchers said veterinarian Gregg Cutler recommended the “Fargo”-esque disposal method during a meeting about the outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease. Cutler said he didn’t, but later acknowledged his belief that it was a “humane way of disposing of the birds in an emergency.”

The incident did prompt the American Veterinary Medical Assn. to condemn the use of a wood chipper as a means of flock reduction, so it was a victory for clucking creatures everywhere.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, meanwhile, was busy cracking down on the Los Angeles Zoo in response to a report documenting wily escapes -- including Evelyn the gorilla climbing a vine out of her exhibit and Gracie the chimpanzee scaling her walls. Twice.

In their efforts to enforce the federal Animal Welfare Act, the feds agreed to hold off on any legal action if the zoo promised to keep better tabs on the animals.

The zoo was also the focus of protests in May, when Ruby, a 42-year-old African elephant, was moved to a zoo in Tennessee. Animal activists vowed a fight to bring her back, saying it was cruel to wrench Ruby from her 16-year companion, Gita, another elephant at the zoo.

Attorney Yael Trock had sought a temporary restraining order, but zookeepers secretly loaded the 9,500-pound animal into an anonymous-looking truck late one Sunday night.

The zookeepers, Trock said, acted “like thieves in the middle of the night.”

Gregory Gallup may wish he had heeded the zoo’s lesson in stealth.

Beverly Hills police arrested Gallup in October on suspicion of commercial burglary after he was found stuck in an air-conditioning shaft near the ballroom of the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Police said he may have been in there for two days. He was fine after extrication, just a little dehydrated.In April, Kelley Marie Ferguson, a lovelorn young Laguna Hills woman, nearly forced a Royal Caribbean cruise ship to turn around after she left two notes in a restroom threatening to “kill all Americanos abord.”

She was held on federal terrorism charges and later sentenced to two years in prison. Investigators learned that she perpetrated the hoax as a means of reuniting her with her boyfriend back on the mainland.

There was a boat caper of a different sort, involving another Orange County resident.

In August, Newport Beach bad boy and former NBA star Dennis Rodman docked his 47-foot speedboat, Sexual Chocolate, at someone else’s slip. Harbor Patrol impounded the boat.

Incidentally, Rodman vowed to make a comeback. By the end of the year, he hadn’t signed with the NBA, but he will hit the court in January with the semipro Long Beach Jam.

If basketball doesn’t work out, Rodman may want to run for office. Judging by the antics displayed in local politics last year, he’d fit right in.

This was the year in which 135 people ran for governor, including a porn star, a pornographer and a couple trying to promote their brand of beer.

The city of South Gate also provided political thrills. At a meeting in February, outgoing Mayor Xochilt Ruvalcaba slugged Councilman Henry Gonzalez in the face.

Ruvalcaba said it was because Gonzalez groped her breast, though no witnesses backed her up.

“She’s a good-sized woman,” Gonzalez said of the overhead right that stung his cheek. “She can throw a punch.”

In Chino, city officials there were trying to protect their reputation.

Tired of the repeated refrain “Chino? Eeewwwwww” on Fox’s soapy drama “The O.C.,” the city manager offered to give TV executives a tour of the town.

The executives declined.

Riverside joined the act too, indignant over the depiction of the 909. One City Council member wanted to sue the network after the show referred to characters from Riverside as “white trash.”

Local boosters responded by installing feel-good billboards along the gridlocked 91 freeway with slogans like “The best little city in the world” and “Orange you glad you picked Riverside?”

Last we tuned in, the threats and billboards didn’t seem to faze Fox a bit.

Beyond the animals, politicians and dumb criminals, there are the stories that defy categorization.

An Orange County woman sued McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurant in Irvine after reporting that she found an unwrapped, rolled-up condom in her clam chowder. As a result, the woman said, she lost 10 pounds as well as her appetite for sex and food.

And in Carpinteria, Santa Claus got deported. The 5-ton, 22-foot statue was declared incompatible with the seaside-village ambience along Santa Claus Lane. He was loaded onto a trailer, hauled up the freeway and given a full face lift before a formal welcoming party at his new home near Oxnard.

One of the oddest stories of 2003 involved a character in one of the oddest stories of 2002.

Last year, wrong-way sailor Rich Van Pham survived for almost 120 days on rainwater, roasted gulls and boiled sea turtles while drifting 2,500 miles from Long Beach to Costa Rica.

It was an amazing tale of survival, a story that earned him national attention. Donations poured in, including a 25-foot sloop equipped with a compass, VHF radio and a GPS device.

Somehow, Pham managed to drift off course again. The U.S. Coast Guard picked him up in January, south of Dana Point. He had a compass and a map, but his radio was broken.

Perhaps batteries for the GPS -- it had none -- will ensure that Pham doesn’t appear on a weird-story list for 2004.