Texas

We went to Texas over the weekend to look for furniture for my daughter, who will be moving out this fall.

Well, that was the ostensible reason.

In actuality, it was to show Itzl off to relatives.

He was a smash hit, of course. He loves everybody, and he particularly liked my brother-in-law’s nose.

I mean he really liked my brother-in-law’s nose.

We have video footage of it, even.

They videotaped him playing with my brother-in-law’s nose, playing with his feather-onna-stick kitty toy, wandering in their backyard, and humping the blue Easter bunny he fell in love with several weeks ago. He’s still too young to know what he’s doing, so he grabs on to the toy bunny and jumps like a little kangaroo rat until he gets tired and then he licks the bunny’s nose and wanders off. It’s funny mostly because the toy is twice his size.

And Itzl was a very good boy, using his potty pads most of the time; except when he got so wound up playing he forgot where the pad was and peed on the kitchen floor instead.

We took him shopping with us, and everyone wanted to play with him. It certainly made the wait in the check-out line more interesting.

We bought locally grown produce – peaches, cantaloupes, blackberries – and a few other odds and ends of things that we don’t have in Oklahoma.

We forgot it was Father’s Day and made the mistake of eating out on Sunday. Itzl would have been much quieter and better behaved than some of those kids. There was a 5 year old that was still (still!!!) in diapers, and she decided to have a fall-on-the-floor screaming tantrum, and oozed out the sides of her diaper. It was disgusting on several levels, not the least of which was how her parents (or the adults with her, anyway) all said how cute she was. There were kids running up and down and knocking things and waitstaff over. And the noise! And this was not at one of those “family-friendly” restaurants, this was a formal restaurant with wine and other alcoholic beverages and a menu with no children’s items on it – clearly meant as an adult restaurant with the occassional well-behaved child present. You could tell the waitstaff wasn’t accustomed to dealing with temper tantrums, thrown food, and the noise. We left an extra $20.00 tip in sympathy because chances are, those people rude enough to bring ill-mannererd children to an obviously adult restaurant didn’t leave any tip at all.

And next year, we will remember not to eat out on Father’s Day.

I don’t think we ate out on Mother’s Day…no, we didn’t because that Thursday before Mother’s Day, I picked up my food co-op order, and we grilled lamb and buffalo with cattail and lily roots, squash blossoms, and veggies, with grilled bruschettas for bread and grilled fruit and ice cream for dessert.

I much prefer to cook for holidays than to eat out – the crowds are always so stressed out and mean those days.

Vampire Puppy

Itzl is growing – he can now wear the collar we bought him 6 weeks ago. On the smallest notch, of course, but still – he’s big enough to have a real genuine dog collar!

Last night he learned to climb up onto the sofa all by himself. Of course, teh ferrets taught him how to move things so he could use them to climb up on. He’s bright enough to watch and learn.

Soon, he’ll figure out how to get over the ferret barricades and then there’ll be no stopping him.

In many ways, he’s like a cat: he adores playing with feathers, chasing a feather on a string, running after small jingly balls, chasing all the other animals’ tails, and leaping out from under the sofa to tag ankles.

and in other ways, he’s quite doggy. He loves his little buffalo bones, and his squeaky pyramid, and his little dog bed.

He still has a major separation anxiety thing going on, and will tolerate scary things just to be near me: the vacuum cleaner, the chain saw, the lawn mower. As long as I carry him in the special neck pouch I made, so he’s well out of the way of the power tools and blocks neither my hands nor my vision, that is.

He’s so small I’ve had to design patterns and make most of the things he plays with and uses.

His bed is 8″x5″ and 3″ tall and he has room to sprawl inside it. I made 2 – one for home and one to stay on my desk at work, so he can snooze by the monitor.

That neck pouch? It velcros around my neck and holds him just above my breasts, so he rests on my cleavage (hence his nickname of “Busom Buddy”), and has a net top that zips shut so he can’t get out when I work with power tools. When he gets bigger, I may add a bottom strap to help keep him below my chin.

I made him a harness that velcros around his neck and ribs so I can attach a leash to take him for walks. The guinea pig harness I bought is still too big to be comfortable for him. How big are guinea pigs anyway? Surely this little dog is bigger than a guinea pig?

To keep him safe in the car, I bought a small rectangular basket, padded the bottom, added a safety strap to snap onto his harness, and made a cozy snooze spot on one side and a place to put the Cool-It Outward Hound giant dog collar. The large size is big enough for him to lie on and keep cool – essential since my car doesn’t have air conditioning in it and the summers here hover at 100º in the shade. The basket has hooks to secure it to the car seat so it doesn’t get tossed about, and it has a sun shade over it to keep the sun off him.

I have no idea why a chihuahua would hate the heat and sun as much as Itzl does, but there it is. I carry a parasol now to shade him when we go out to parks and festivals because he really dislikes the sun. Vampire puppy. That’s what he is. A vampire puppy.

Puppy Progress

Itzl is definitely growing up.

He weighs almost 2 pounds now – almost quadruple the weight he was when we got him.

I am learning his definite likes and dislikes, thus learning ways to teach him what I want him to learn.

He adores fried chicken, buffalo in any form, extra sharp cheddar, Mozzarella, Monterey Jack, the teeny Greenies, anything with cinnamon, lemons, pickles, and timothy hay. I think he picked up the timothy hay habit from the rabbit – the two of them will settle down side by side and munch on hay – sometimes the same piece from different ends – in the kitchen while I wash dishes or knead dough or check on the stills and fermentors.

He likes to chase feathers on a fishing pole. Actually, he loves feathers of all kinds. And he absolutely is in love with the blue stuffed bunny I received for Floralia. He play-humps it – and it’s obvious the poor puppy has no clue what he’s doing because his little back legs are pounding the floor as he leaps up and down with his teeth firmly clamped on the stuffed bunny’s nose and his front legs wrapped around one of hte bunny legs. He reminds me of little toddlers who are just discovering body parts and fiddling around with them – not sex at all, just curiosity and exploration. In toddlers, given a year or two, they’ll stop being so interested in those parts of their body, and exhibit extreme modesty instead. I wonder if Itzl will do the same thing as he ages?

Anyway, for now, it’s hilarious, watching him air hump a toy.

He’s still too small to let the ferrets play with him as they play rough, so he’s relegated to his toy bunny, the live bunny in the kitchen, and the cats who studiously ignore him except when they run away from him, and people. The rest of the critters ignore him, except the big dogs who are puzzled by him. They look at him, then at me with this “That’s a dog?” look and a slow wag of their tails as if I’m kidding them and they just don’t get the joke.

Puppy Papers

Why I am interested in my puppy’s papers, even if I don’t plan to breed him: a pedigree allows me to see the degree of inbreeding (if any) to ascertain his potential health. It confirms that he is indeed of the specified breed, giving a clue to temperament and breed specific ailments and special needs. By knowing who his parents were (and possibly even his siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins), I can get a good idea of how he’ll behave and how easy he’ll be to train. I can figure out what his weaknesses are and what he likes.

Itzl is very claustrophobic. Were his parents also claustrophobic? He adores buffalo meat. Did any of his relatives like buffalo? He dislikes lamb. Is this a family trait? He housebroke amazingly quickly, especially for a small dog. Is this also a family trait? I won’t know unless I know who his real parents were.

Chihuahuas tend to be very healthy, but some lines do have specific health problems. Will Itzl have any inheritable ailments?

A detailed pedigree will lay many of these questions to rest.

Even a basic pedigree would be a start.

And if his pedigree is suitable, given his truly sweet and friendly personality (not to mention the incredible ease of housebreaking him), it would be desirable to allow him to breed at least once or twice to set his genes in the line, although I’m not committed to this. I really don’t like unaltered animals as pets and I don’t plan to be a breeder, not even a small backyard breeder. This option, of breeding him, is the least important reason, to me, for securing his papers and pedigree.

But, without a suitable pedigree, I have no idea what health or personality problems will reveal themselves, and I certainly won’t be letting him act as stud, no matter how sweet his personality.

Itzl’s Age

We took the puppy to the vet last Saturday because he has an ear infection.

The vet said she felt he was a week younger than we thought he was, based on tooth development.

That means the breeder sold him when he was just 3 weeks old – eyes barely open.

Yesterday, we finally got the documentation for his birth date and pedigree – and it doesn’t match the receipt we have. For starters, the registration isn’t through the litter with the AKC, as we were told, but through the Continental Kennel Club, whose standards are considerably lower than the AKC’s. For seconds, the dam listed on the receipt is not the same as hte dam listed on the documentation. And for thirds – we bought him on April 23, and by the vet’s estimate, he was born around April 1st as he’s only now 7-8 weeks old and the documentation claims he was born February 19, making him close to 16 weeks old.

Now, the puppy is a great little dog – he’s already housebroken, he’s learned a few simple commands (not the ones I want him to learn, like “come” and “stay”, but he did learn “drop” to let go of things he’s not supposed to have in his mouth, and “jazz hands” where he rears up and shakes his front paws, and “up” to stand so he can be picked up, and “bed” to go to his little bed and go to sleep, and “good ears” for letting me put in his ear drops and “good feet” so I can clip his nails), and he has the happiest outgoing personality. Until yesterday, I would have said he loves everybody, but yesterday, a woman came in to drop off some catalogs, and he refused to let her come close to me. He kept putting himself between us and was really upset that I took something from her. He growled at the catalogs for almost half an hour after she left – until I dusted them off with an almost dry anti-bacterial wipe. Today, I learned she had an active strep infection. As far as I know, she’s the only person with a abcterial infection he’s been around. Now I have to find out if he acts that way around anyone with a bacterial infection. It could prove very helpful where I work to have a dog that can tell when someone is contagious.

Anyway, Itzl is a great little dog. I’m sure any day now he’ll master “come” and “stay”, and then he’ll be ready for more fun and games.

Still, I am angered that the breeder would sell a puppy so young, and I want to do something about it. Not everyone knows how to care for a 3 week old puppy, and not everyone has kind employers who allow you to bring your puppy to work and keep him on your desk every day.

I am also working on getting Itzl’s pedigree, not because I plan to breed him but because I dislike the fact that the breeder has claimed 2 different dams for him. A DNA test will resolve that quickly enough, I’m sure.

I also contacted the AKC to see if he was ever a breeder licensed with them and had it revoked (which is why he’s now using CDC, but still claiming AKC).

This weekend, I plan to visit (or at least drive by) the kennel where he was born.

All in all, while I am pleased with Itzl, who is turning into a fantastic little dog, I am extremely displeased with the breeder.

Growing Up

Itzl is growing up – he’s mastered walking well, and he’s grown 3/4″, so he’s now 5 1/2″ tall and weighs 1 pound 5 ounces. He can now eat softened food all by himself!

I made him a new bed because the pet stores didn’t have one in his size. It
s only slightly larger than his little bed in the picture, but this one allows him to sprawl out and play with his toys in it.

I also found a harness that almost fits him – it’s a guinea pig harness. It’s still a bit big even on the smallest setting, but he stays in it and loves to go for walks, even if the grass grows higher than he is tall.

He’s so cute, reaching up to snap at dandelion puffs.

He plays well with the ferrets, but we don’t leave them alone together because one good, playful bite from a ferret could hurt him badly.

Dogmatix and Drooly aren’t sure what to make of him, especially when he crawls into their food dishes. He’s smaller than Dogmatix’s nose!

And he’s developed an especial fondness for Bun-Bun, the Kitchen Rabbit. Or maybe it’s just the timothy hay Bun-Bun knocks out of his cage.

Itzl

We rescued a small puppy last week.

A very small puppy. He’s 6 inches tall and according to the postal scales, weighs 14 ounces.

The breeder set up a truck in a parking lot to sell his culls – the puppies he couldn’t sell as show dogs or as breeding stock. Some were too genetically inbred (those poor pugs with noses so squashed in they were gasping for each breath), some were accidental crossbreeds, and some, because they were judged “unfriendly” or not “pretty” enough.

This puppy looked exactly like the dog I’ve been telling my children for decades would be my “old lady” dog – down to the sword shaped white mark on his chest and the white goatee. The rest of him is black, with tan paws, eyebrows, and cheek flares.

He acted very enthusiastic to see me, and settled quickly when I held him. The breeder, however, called him a difficult puppy who was unfriendly and anti-social, whining and howling if anyone held him.

We left him at the truck after we saw him, and drove off to do errands. We didn’t leave him because we thought he was unfriendly, we left because the price was beyond our financial means.

That evening, the truck was still there, and we stopped, just to see if the puppy was still there.

He was.

The breeder said any puppies left by 5:00 p.m. would be euthanized as unsellable.

It was 4:30.

He was surprised that the puppy seemd calm around me, and allowed me to hold him without biting or whining. Eventually, he halved his asking price, placing the puppy barely in our financial reach, so we bought him.

And discovered the breeder lied about his age. The puppy wasn’t 8 weeks old. He was 4, maybe 5 weeks old.

He was weaned, but he’d been weaned to a paste he could lick up, not to solid food, even moist solid food.

I spent all last week teaching him how to eat moist food (cooked buffalo and chicken, Wysong’s Archetypal Diet).

He decided he was my dog, even before I met him, and ever since, as long as he can see me, he’s thrilled to meet new people and play with them. Which is a good thing, as I get close to a hundred visitors a day at my desk.

Yes, he gets to go to work with me every day. He has a bed, food bowls, and toys at work, on my desktop because he’s really too little to go anywhere else. His bed isn’t much larger than my pencil cup.

I’ll bring the camera to work tomorrow and take a picture of him sleeping on my desk.

We named him Itzcuintl (Itzl for short). That’s Aztec for Obsidian Dog, so calling him Itzl is an Aztec way of calling him “Blackie”.

I’ve had him a week now, and he’s learned a few important words: his name, of course, but also “bed” which means he needs to sleep now, “ouch” which means he’s biting too hard, “pad” which means where he potties, and he’s learning “I’ll be right back”. That last is very important as he has a severe case of separation anxiety, and I need to nip that in the bud. There will be times and places where I can’t take him, and he’ll have to stay either at home or in a carrier until I return.

But for now, I can take him to work, and I can take him into most stores.