Ebony's Pearls

Itzl Watching Over Xoco and "Gremlin"
Originally uploaded by nodigio

Apparently, Itzl loves all real Chihuahuas.

We looked at rescue dogs today because they were out and we were in the area and Itzl wanted to have every single one of the Chihuahua puppies he saw. Six puppies would be far to many, so I had him pick put the one single Chihuahua puppy he most wanted.

That's the tiny brown one in the picture. She has a heart shaped spot between her eyes and nose on a paler brown face. Other than that, she looks remarkably like a tiny field bunny from the back.

And she has a chronic case of seborrhea and possibly some other minor skin condition.

I named her XocotlTochtli, which is Nahuatl for "Star Rabbit", since she has a white star marked between her shoulder blades and looks so much like a little tiny baby bunny.

The other puppy? That's the one my daughter couldn't bear to leave behind. She is a blue Chihuahua, also with a case of seborrhea much worse than Xoco's. She doesn't have a name yet. She's almost three times the size of Xoco, yet they were born about the same time.

Itzl likes her a lot, too, and was happy we brought both of them home with us. He wanted all six of the Chihuahua puppies. He wasn't interested in the Dachsies or the Yorkies or the Pomeranians or the dogs who were mixes of those and Chihuahua. Just the Chihuahuas.

Does that make him breedist? He plays well with a couple of little Dachsies and he tries to encourage a Sheltie to play with him, and he gets along with my son's Irish Wolfhound/Beagle and Cairn Terrier. He likes Labs. But he adores Chihuahuas. Real ones, not ones with some Chihuahua in them, because if he did, he would have liked Rafferty much better than he did.

I've always heard Chihuahuas know other Chihuahuas and in Itzl's case, it seems to be true. He knew which puppies were the full blood (or so close as to be indistinguishable from full blood) Chihuahuas and those were the ones he played with and tried to herd away from the others to take home with us.

Sometimes, I'm amazed I didn't take them all. The black long haired girl with the tan ears was tempting, and fawn and white one was sweet, and the white one with the off-center blue "beret", and the black and tan one - all just tugged at the heart.

But Xoco loved Itzl as much as Itzl loved her - and she loved me, too. So we chose her since we couldn't bear to leave without one of them.

And my daughter couldn't bear to leave the blue Chihuahua behind, so she came. too.

Xoco and Rhapsody were starving, so we stopped at PetsMart to pick up puppy chow (I gave all I had away with Rafferty, not expecting to have another puppy so soon) and collars for them. Xoco's is pink because the color choices for dogs that small were pink, pink, pink, and ummmm - pink. Rgapsody is just larger enough we also had the choice of black or pink. She got black.

When we got them home, they ate so much so fast, we were afraid they'd be gorgers and not dogs who could free feed.

It turned out they were just so hungry they ate and ate and ate, then napped, ate some more, napped again, and ate a bit more, and then they walked away from food still in the bowl, so maybe it was just that they'd never gotten to eat their fill before. Now that they have, perhaps they will become free feeders.

Rhapsody needs calcium to help her ears stand up, so we treated her to a bit of cheese. Those floppy ears should start perking up, and a strict course of skin care treatment should clear up her seborrhea. Xoco's isn't so bad but I'll give her the same treatment - frequent bathing with a medicated shampoo, healthy food, and healthy snacks, filtered sunlight, and some colloidal oatmeal skin spray for the hairless patches.

In a couple of weeks, these will be much healthier looking puppies.

And we're keeping these. They aren't going to be fostered and given away.

I went to JoAnn's Fabrics and chose fabrics for their new beds and some dawgie bags and blankies.

My office is cold, so they both have sweaters to wear and I'll keep blankies at my desk for them. Rhapsody will go with me until she's trained and old enough to stay with Symphony, who adores her. They are already (mostly) happy playmates.

Xoco, she'll probably accompany me to work every day. She won't be able to go other places with me because she's a pet and I will not train her as a service dog. I only need one at a time, and that's Itzl.

The three of them are all sleeping together in the blankets. That's a sure clue that they like one another.