Adjustments

Ziggy is getting adjusted to his new home and he plays with all the energy he can muster running like a bolt of lightning, at least in his mind. He is hilarious to watch. He has no fear, in true chihuahua disposition and will stand up on his hind legs and nip and wrestle with the other dogs, even trying to take their toys from them. When he's expended all the energy he can muster he just passes out. He has kept us all quite entertained and laughing often the last two days.


He and Phoebe have gotten quite close, they wrestle and he jumps on her back but she loves every moment of it being the mommy dog and loving to nurture. She has missed not having puppies in the house since we got her spayed.


Smoochie is still trying to figure out if he likes the new puppy or not. He is beginning to play with him and is less concerned he will get the attention of everyone, but is still trying to take everything away from him and keeps a bit of a "I'm still the baby" attitude as you can see in his photo, he's sticking out his tongue at him!


When Ziggy has run out of energy he sleeps like a rock and is adorable! Who can resist a darling sleeping puppy or child? They are so sweet when they are sleeping aren't they?




He seems to be adjusting to the camera in his face all the time. He doesn't mind the flash but sometimes he does seem to think "Are you done yet?" I'm sure he feels like a celebrity being chased by paparazzi.


Who can resist loving this precious boy? He's just so photogenic and sweet and is going to be quite feisty as he continues to grow and adjust to his new home.

Welcome Ziggy!

Introducing the new addition to our family our tiny Chihuahua, Ziggy! He is 7 weeks old and is full of energy when he's not sleeping. What an adorable joy he is already in our household and to our family.


He came home last night and the Dachshunds were very excited to get to know him. Phoebe, our female immediately wanted to baby him and mother him.


Delbert our older male dachshund was interested and probably was thinking "oh no, another baby" but very gentle and loving.


Smoochie was a little more weary being that he has always been the baby in the house the offspring of Delbert and Phoebe and very spoiled by everyone. However, he is trying to get to know Ziggy and just wants to take the toys from him but otherwise is getting adjusted.


Ziggy seems to be quite happy with his new home and hasn't whined or cried once yet. He is eating well and sleeping a lot like babies do and is enjoying going outdoors every couple of hours with the other dogs. He is precious and tiny. He is about 12 ounces in weight and is 6 inches tall, if that! He is about the size of a soda can. Our daughter Keegan is his little mommy and shes taking very good care of him around the clock.


The entire family is enamored with this adorable darling and we can't believe how we all fell in love immediately. His personality is not quite showing through but you can tell that he will be quite feisty when he gets a bit older.


There will be many stories to tell and exciting adventures ahead for our family and Ziggy as he begins to grow up in our household and part of our family. We look forward to sharing them with everyone.

How to Practice Water Safety With Your Dog | eHow.com

How to Practice Water Safety With Your Dog | eHow.com

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The Adventure Begins

The adventure is just beginning although the search seemed exhausting. Wading through experiments with advertising on the Internet and emailing and visiting to see if we could find the new baby for our home has seemed tedious. Finally, a litter of three male Chihuahua's needing a home, in the right price range and from a home that was loving and a mommy dog that was just adorable found me. To save a lot of heartache and whining from the family, I did a little research on my own and any of the three baby boys would be perfect. Now, the excitement begins when we take the family to pick out which one we want and bring the new darling home to begin its new life.



This evening we will venture out and bring one of the boys home. What will we name him? Do you have any suggestions? All will be considered so please feel free to give us some name suggestions! That will be a large debate as the evening progresses and there will be arguing as the perfect name for our new baby boy rings true and sticks. The three dachshunds will be excited and perplexed with the new addition as I'm sure they have not paid any attention to the discussions on the new puppy. I am sure the evening will run late into the night with the family buzzing and rambunctious over our addition.


The first thing to do before going to get our new joyful baby is to make a stop at the store to gather some supplies. You have to be prepared for a new puppy and have some items on hand before we go and get him. Puppy food is the main thing we need first, and being that I've already done a little pre-puppy investigation, we know what kind we need to purchase. It's always good to keep the puppy on the same food it has been eating so that there aren't any tummy troubles right away. There is enough stress in the babies life living its mother and siblings and going into a new place you don't want to change its diet as well. A collar and leash to begin training early, although a new tiny puppy isn't going to wander off, it's always good to get them used to it as early as possible. Chew toys for those needle sharp puppy teeth to grind into and something soft and warm to cuddle up with makes the transition a little easier on the puppy. A package of puppy potty pads are a must with a new puppy in the house. I can't speak more highly of this product, having had puppies from my dachshunds, I know they work wonders and whatever makes the puppy go right to them is a miracle.



Some ground rules for the children need to be set beforehand so that there isn't a lot of stressful arguing and the puppy doesn't get scared. Everyone will want to hold him and have him with them at all times. Puppies need a lot of love and attention but don't need to be smothered. A schedule as close to the one the puppy has been living with will need to be worked into our schedule. Having the kids home during summer vacation is quite helpful for taking the puppy outside often when I don't have the time and by the time school starts the puppy will be used to its new routine. Puppies sleep a lot and need their rest as well, so making sure the new baby gets plenty of quality sleep and play time when he needs it will be mandatory.



The excitement is brewing and I know the family will be head over heels in love with our new baby boy. I am so excited I can hardly wait for this evening for all of us to go and get him. This journey will be exciting and there will be frustration ahead, happiness, entertainment and humor not to mention late night crying and going outside in the middle of the night for potty trips and most of all a lot of little kisses from our new joyful addition.

Stay tuned for updates and new adventures as our life begins this new journey with our new addition!

How to Shop For A New Dog | eHow.com

How to Shop For A New Dog | eHow.com

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Don't Get Fooled With Puppy Advertisements

Don’t Get Fooled!
Jaymie Pierce


On our ever-ending search for that perfect addition to our family, I answered a few advertisements with our newspaper Atlanta Journal Constitution online. This paper is highly regarded and I enjoy reading it quite often.
One out of ten replies that I received back were touching, heart warming stories from these poor souls in Cameroon trying to find homes for their Yorkshire terrier puppies. My heart ached for them as I read through the long drawn out replies I received. No, I’m sorry I’m not so gullible to think that all Yorkshire terriers come from Cameroon. These emails they send out are hilarious and you know with the first sentence this is a scam. How can they truly think that someone would send them loads of cash in order to get their precious pups shipped to them from another country? Do they expect that I will stand at the airport excited and ready to take the darling home and find that the crate never comes off the airplane? I have to laugh to myself at their gumption. I have to feel sad for those that obviously fall prey to this trickery. There must be people that do believe these stories and send in their money, or they would not be so persistent and have so many advertisements for puppies on the classifieds. As I write this I’ve scanned many, many websites on the Internet warning people of the puppy scams. How can one not do a little research about foreign puppies before handing over their money? I know that when we want a new darling for our family we become frenzied in our search for that special puppy. I don’t think that I will ever get to a point where all my common sense will fly out the window and I will start sending out cash all over the globe and wait patiently at the airport for any puppy. It saddens me that people fall for these scams and they get hurt and lose their money. But, if there are those out there that will send them money, they will never stop!

In my frustration with the advertisements, I’ve decided to stop wasting my time. It seems that most of them on the Internet in the classifieds are some sort of scam and a waste of time to research. I will continue our search with local breeders and try to go with word of mouth through other breeders in our area. I’m sure that I will find that perfect addition to our family soon, hopefully before my daughters birthday, but then again a nicely wrapped collar and leash might just have to suffice as a promise for a puppy to put it on if we are still searching by mid-July.

As I continue on this journey I will keep good notes and I hope that when I am all finished with our search and we have our baby in hand, my adventure will be good use to others out there ready to find that new addition to their family.

Remember, stay local in your search, don’t get excited with advertisements in your local newspaper or on the Internet that are way below market price for the animal or seem to good to be true. Know your breed you are shopping for and what the going rate is and when you see a price that stands out to you that seems like a deal, run the other direction. Even if the dog is local this could be a puppy mill animal or an unhealthy animal. You always want to go where you can see the parents on premises at least the mother of the puppies and you want to see the puppies interact with the litter and the mother as well as with you and your family. Even when getting a gift for a child or family member, it’s not a good idea for this to be a surprise gift because the puppy needs to interact with everyone. Take the entire family with you when you go to visit your new puppy to be and if you don’t feel it’s the one then walk away and continue the search. As hard as it sounds when you are ready to take that puppy home, it’s always better to wait and get the perfect pet for your family then taking one out of impulse at the moment.

A New Addition To The Family

We Are Adding A New Baby To The Family
By Jaymie Pierce

When a child announces that they want a puppy there are several emotions that run through a parent. First, you immediately think this is not going to happen. Then later as you mill it through your mind you think of the puppy and the child and the sweet moments that will make your heart melt. You know that the middle of the night crying and getting up with a new puppy to take it outside is not forefront in your heart warm moments you push the truth and facts behind the sweetness of watching your child interact with their very own baby. Now, you have convinced yourself this is a great idea and you begin to consider a new addition to the family.

With the warm and fuzzies circulating throughout your head you begin to consider a breed. Of course a young boy would probably want a rough and tumble, stick-fetching dog to play with outdoors. The great clips of “Lassie” and “Homeward Bound” play in your mind. A daughter of course wants a frilly foo foo dog to dress in cute clothing and brush its silky hair to put bows in and paint it’s tiny toenails. Being that our daughter is the one that has wrapped her parents around her finger we started searching for information on small dog breeds. At first she said she wanted a Chihuahua and we both had childhood memories of one sort or the other, my husbands being a nice nip on the lip by the cute darling. We then started looking at the breed and realized that the aggression of Chihuahua might not fit our family. We already have three loving warm-hearted dachshunds and didn’t want to have a war on our hands. We decided to move towards a more laid-back breed that would blend in with our brood and be more of a sofa princess along with our adorable phoebe. So, we decided on the Yorkshire terrier.

This breed is small and petite and adventurous. This breed seems to be just what we want in our family to play with our dachshunds. They can be very good dogs in a pack family with the adults being the leaders. We believe that you should integrate the right breeds into a family to suit your lifestyle. We take the dogs out quite often our male dachshunds avid ball chasers and love to get exercise. Our female very laidback and much more suited to lounge in the sun. Doing my research to make sure we are making the right choice I find that the Yorkshire terrier has a lot of energy but is well suited for apartment living, not that we live in an apartment but that tells me that we don’t need a farm for the dog to run. Now we have to decide on the sex of the dog. We are still working on that and deciding whether a male or female would better suit our family. We have one female and two males now. I’m on the side of another female would probably even out the balance in the dog world. Being that dachshunds were originally bred to hunt badgers in small holes and the Yorkshire terrier was bred to hunt out rats that infested the badger and foxholes, these two breeds seem to mix well together.

The first step is to find a puppy that is healthy and well adjusted. That is our process now, looking to find the right puppy. A healthy well rounded puppy will be playful have clear shiny eyes and a wet nose. They will lay on their back when you hold them and not go wild and try to tear away. You will see their tail wag and they will have great concentration on playing with you. If the puppy is growling and trying to bite and seems aggressive or lethargic and not eager to seek out adventure, this puppy is not a healthy pup. As we continue on our quest I will update this topic so that the journey continues. The goal is to find a healthy happy puppy by the middle of the month, our daughter’s birthday. The journey will begin with a new addition to the family that I know will be both exciting and tedious as we get through all the milestones.