So as I said in a previous thread my wife and I were thinking of adding a third dog to our pack, and found a little chihuahua on Petfinder that we liked. He had some special needs- see this thread for a discussion:
We met Jingle Bell last Sunday and liked his personality, and made arrangements to introduce our dogs to them last night.
We were most worried about our Chiweenie, Maggie, who can be a little aggressive around other dogs. So she went first, and did amazing! She was interested in him right away, but not aggressive at all. He was a little skittish with her and us all together (understandably), but within minutes was jumping on my wife (smart dog- she was the one picking him out!), and more or less ignoring Maggie. At that point we brought in my 12yo Yellow Lab, Maguire, (who is I must say, the best dog ever!) and he smelled the new puppy and promptly ignored him. The shelter people were most concerned about JBs reaction to Maguire as “Large dogs frighten him.” Baloney, JB was very interested in Maguire, and chased him around the room, trying to get noticed!
So… we took him! 2 yrs and 2months old, 5# male Chihuahua. Formerly named Jingle Bell. We’re gonna call him Rocco; he looks like a Rocco- we discussed lots of names, and Rocco just fit. He did pretty well at the pet supply (only one little piddle) and Maggie couldn’t be happier- she follows him around trying to get him to play so hard!!! He’s still trying to figure everything out, so he is still a little unsure, but he warns Maggie when she gets to be too much of a pest (she is also trying to send the “I’m the alpha” dominance message by putting her head over his back, on his shoulders- he just growls a little and she backs off. She mostly just wants him to play!) He was THRILLED to get to run around the back-yard last night off leash (Maggie and Maguire promptly peed every place he did, of course!).
Rocco also got a bath- we weren’t going to (too much drama and excitement for one day, but he kinda stank from the kennel, so we did. He came through very well, and ran around upstairs after we were done, playing with my wife and I (our dogs would not come upstairs when the saw the doggie shampoo and raggy towels so we had some alone time with Rocco).
Finally, even Maguire, my old man, started to try and play with Rocco. A very exhausting evening for all concerned. He went into his kennel for bedtime unhesitatingly, and all three slept HARD all night.
This morning they all went outside, and all ate their breakfasts w/o any problems. Only a couple of accidents so far… adjustments. He’ll figure out he can go outside all the time eventually.
Pics will follow, if I can figure out how to put them here!
