But they sure don't like Satan. In fact, they chased him out of our apartment complex. 

The dogs had taken me for my morning walk the other day. They take me outside twice a day, in return for which I feed them, bathe them, give them lots of scratching and allow them to sleep as much as they want. 

They'd stopped for a moment to inspect their markings on the nearest telephone pole when I heard Satan sneaking up behind me. 

"Satan!" a man's voice bellowed from a nearby apartment door. "You leave those little dogs alone!" 

As I turned, I saw Satan for the first time in my life — a full-grown German Shepherd (y'all don't believe those stories you hear about him having horns and such). He loped across the parking lot, eager to work wickedness. 

Smedley hit him first, launching all four pounds of pure chihuahua fury at Satan's chest. After bouncing off the 100-pound monster the first time, he found a tooth hold on Satan's back. 

Rusty attacked from the rear, getting the shepherd's leg in his jaws and gnawing away like it was a rib bone. When I think about it now, it was kinda funny, watching that big dog shaking his leg with its five-pound attachment. 

Jerry Falwell never did a better job. Satan started running. 

Smedley and Rusty fell off before the big'un had gone too far, and they chased him halfway across the vacant field adjacent to our apartments before the big devil's longer legs enabled him to pull away. The man from the apartment who'd called him earlier rushed by, mumbling apologies, and we saw them disappear around the corner. 

Smedley (that's Lieutenant Colonel Smedley D. Butler) and Rusty (Sergeant Major Russell J. Chihooiehooie) normally don't like each other all that much, near as I can tell, but the Houston Rockets never displayed the kind of teamwork those two showed when fighting Satan. 

I guess I should've expected it of Rusty; several years ago he put 137 stitches in a Doberman after the attack dog had foolishly wandered into my brother's yard and started chasing around my 4-year-old niece. Age may have made him a tad slower and his teeth less sharp, but he can still scrap with the best of 'em — even when it means gumming 'em to death. 

Smedley, however, surprised me. He's always been a coward — you know, the chihuahua who hides under the couch until the band of kids wanders by, jumping out to nip the last one in line and then diving back under the couch. 

I named him for a two-time Medal of Honor winner and had heretofore regretted that somewhat. 

I told my preacher about the incident and he got a big kick out of it, and even worked it into his sermon the other day. He still won't let me bring 'em to church, though; he says he doesn't trust 'em with all that nice wood around. 

Satan stays away from us now. I talked with the man he rooms with later, and he told me he'd run almost three blocks before Satan finally let him catch up. "Those little dogs scared him to death," he said. 

Personally, I think they just put the fear of God into him.