Sophie Sitting Pretty

Sophie Sitting Pretty
Originally uploaded by donnyatx

Sophie is my blog topic for today!

As I've mentioned before she was a "stray" that showed up in our yard. Moira came running up to me "Mommy, MOMMY Santa brought us a dog for our birthday!!!" It happened to be their birthday, December 21st. Oh of all days, lol.

After explaining to her that it was most likely a wandering dog she accepted that it was highly likely we'd be returning the dog to its real owner shortly. We had gone through a similar situation a few months earlier with a white terrier. We found it's owner 2 days later and she cried and, to this day, still talks about that dog. She told the owner she loved her and wanted to see it a lot.

We are going on 3 months and still have not found Sophie's "owner". We've had 2 ads out in the paper, along with calling the pound and the local vets here. She had no microchip or tags. I have to say, please keep tags on your pets! I can't imagine not having something so easy and simple put on an animal you care about having returned to you.

Over the last few months we have undoubtedly become attached to her. She and our poodle, Abby, are- for lack of a better term- best friends. They do almost everything together. We adopted Charley over the summer to be her buddy and play but he never was what she needed, he'd rather be next to my foot or getting a belly rub.

Sophie filled that spot right up- they run and play. She will yap at Abby or paw Abby's face until Abby gets up and chases her around. It's been good for them!

Sophie has some quirks. One, she can be given a treat or toy and will go hide it. Then she comes back to yap LOUDLY at one of the other dogs- wanting to get what they have. That can be very, very annoying. Especially since I give them each one of whatever it is, and she's gone and hid hers and wants theirs.

Second, she sneaky pees. It has made house training very difficult. I can't crate her alone because she is too loud. She can maintain yapping and whining for crazy amounts of time if she deems it necessary. It seems to have gotten better, but she still does it! She can pee standing straight up, you'd never know. >.< She even peed right in front of our vet on the tile!

Third, she's a door 'dasher'. If she sees any door or gate open, she'll make a mad dash to get through it- regardless of where it leads (bedrooms, bathrooms, garage, yard, etc). Luckily we have been able to teach her the front door is a big huge NO. She's run out into the street 3 times that I can remember. Luckily each time she has come to me when called. Scary though! She did that at the vets too. That's why we call her "The Defector".

We have a few theories on how she got to us. One, she "dashed" out of wherever she was living. Two, she jumped out of someone's car. Three, someone dumped her off here because they were tired of her.

Considering the only 2 calls we got for missing dogs were not her and there were no reports/signs up for her we are honestly thinking someone dumped her. Add that to the fact that we have a fully fenced yard and it just adds to the ??'s.

We'll probably never know. I never thought I'd love a Chihuahua (possibly chi-pom) but she's super cute and very sweet. She can be annoying at times but I'm tolerant and have the time to invest in her "issues" :-).