Better late than never…here’s our long drawn out story…

When my daughter was born we had a yorkie named Yorkie and she would follow my daughter everywhere from the time she was born until the time we had to give her up.  I remember whenever my daughter was in her cradle Yorkie would be right there underneath guarding her and would always be near wherever she was in the house.  When my daughter was 6, I was transferred to College Station and we had to move from our house to an apartment and by then Yorkie was getting too old for the stairs and to be staying home alone for long periods of time so we chose to give her to some friends of ours that have a large farm and were home all day to care for her and give her a wonderful life for her remaining years.  We both were torn over this but it was best for our baby.  She lived her last years having the run of the farm and living the life of luxury and had lots of love from her new family.  I still get teary just writing about her and miss her greatly. 

When my daughter was 8, she started asking for another puppy and I kept telling her that we were in an apartment and it was not a good place for a puppy and with the way I was working and volunteering for all of her extracurricular activities (girl scout leader, basketball coach, soccer coach, softball coach, church activity chaperone plus school activities) that we did not have the time to dedicate to a puppy/dog and that we wouldn’t want to get a puppy and it would have to be alone all of the time. 

Needless to say, I did start looking.  I had a friend that had a Chi and that she would keep in touch with the breeder that she had gotten her puppy from to try and get us a small female dog that we could keep in an apartment and manage to take most places with us so it would not have to spend so much time alone.  We thought several times that we would be getting a puppy and either the litter did not make it or the breeding did not take.  By this time it was coming upon my daughter’s 10th birthday and we still did not have a puppy or no indication one would be coming soon.  My daughter and I would go to the mall all the time and they happened to open a “puppy store” so we would always go in and look for a Chi.  We saw some but they were really not in the budget at the time and I just never had that feeling that they were the “ones”.  Well, November 11, we went to the store and they had two male Chi’s born on September 7th, one was white with black and tan spots and the other was blue with white markings.  Unfortunately I did not want a male, I had my mind set on a female but my daughter just had to hold one so we asked to see the spotted puppy and we sat on the floor with it but it just didn’t appeal to me, no connection I guess.  So, I asked if we could go ahead and see the blue.  Well, they brought out the blue and the minute I held him, I knew he was going home with us, even knowing all of the horror stories about purchasing from a pet store.  My daughter held him and immediately gave me the puppy dog eyes saying that she had to have him.  So that is how Socrates became our new puppy and we began planning to return to our home in Spring.

Of course the story cannot end here…

I mentioned before about my friend that had a Chi had been trying to get us a puppy, well in December right before Christmas we were in Spring on break and she called and said that she did not have a puppy but did have her dogs litter mate and wanted to know if I wanted her because her new family decided they did not want her.  I thought about a minute and was upset for her “being rejected” and told her yes, I would take her. 

So right after Christmas, I went back to work in College Station and picked up our second Chi, Tessie.  Tessie was 4 years old at that time and she fit right in with the family.  Tessie is a lap dog all the way, that is all she wants out of life, to be held.  She is the most gentle and loving dog I have ever had or met for that matter.  Now that we had two Chi’s we definitely had to kick our plan of moving into high gear. 

After much discussion and debating we decided that at the end of the school year, I would quit my job and we would move back to our house in Spring and I would return to school the following year.  In the process of slowly packing and moving things from the apartment in CS to the house in Spring over the next 5 months, the babies (Socrates and Tessie) were sent to stay with my mom since we were traveling back and forth so much. 

Of course, I didn’t discover what had happened until about the middle of June when Tessie sure looked like she was putting on some weight.  She was always skinny and all of sudden she was rather plump. (Tessie evidently went into heat while with my mother and Socrates decided that at 8 months he was ready to be a daddy)  By July, Tessie was like rolly polly and I carried her just about everywhere as it just seemed like too much of  a burden on her to walk. 

On July 10th of this year, Tessie went into labor.  The first pup was not ready yet and was still born.  I quickly cleaned him up and buried him in the back yard, I was worried about the others but wanted to be ready when the time came.  A while later, Shadow was born, weighing 1 ½ ounces, she was blue at birth but is still confused and keeps changing colors. 

She is now like a light brown with a blue/black stripe starting from neck to tail.  Then came the baby, Bubba, weighing 1 ounce, he was cream at birth and still is cream.

This is how we became a 4 Chi family, hopefully my long story did not bore you to tears but this is the way it came to be….