Tiller- (Skansen's- Ira in the M
I DO Exist...To- Drive You Batty | 
 | | Barked: Fri Dec 7, '12 11:56am PST |  | |  | | Chis are actually pretty awesome. A lot of times they aren't given the time to BE awesome, but if you want to raise one like a "real" dog, you will have a real dog, a lot like what Moose described. This is one of the most intelligent of all breeds, has more individual personality and quirk than most breeds, and very few tolerate spoiling as well as they do. You need to select your Chihuahua carefully as they are so overbred and rampantly bred that you need to either know the parents or know the dog you are getting, particularly if a puppy.
I've come close to foster failing only three times. I know that sounds weird, and it has nothing to do with my love for shelter dogs, which is obvious and apparent. But bond is something I grow into, and in terms of what dog I end up with for fifteen years, I am pretty prickly. I do a lot better with purebreds, with genetics and some future concept, and of course am a puppy person, 100%. Some complain about puppies. Once my dogs become dogs, I start missing the puppy. Yes, even the eighteen month old puppy that is ruining my life. I just love puppies and their promise, and pointing them to what they can grow up to be. I'd never get an adult dog (of any sort)....it's like a plain, bunless burger. Ok, you are still getting the substance of what you desire....the meat patty...but all the fun stuff is gone and you don't get to design it any way and miss out on so much texture. The fun is gone. You still get the actual burger, but come on! 
Anyway, one of those three was an American Bulldog. Which makes sense. Two, however, and this will surprise I assume  , were Chihuahua mixes. One I regret not keeping. The first, Roxy, was going to be fine wherever she went. She was just a starlet and I lusted for her. She was a true star and if she had tons of type and I were a breeder, I would have been freaking out, for she truly was a star. I remember taking her to my mom's Assisted Living. She trotted out of the room, down the hall....I mean like she owned the place....and just kept on trotting down this long and winding hallway. I just let her....she feared nothing..... and then heard the nurses exploding with glee. She had trotted to their station and had just propped herself in that cocky and social way she had and they were over the moon with all her darling presumptiveness. She was like 5 lbs or something and my Cocker thought she was a rat and I had to be careful because he obviously wanted to eat her. Because he thought she was a RAT! She was so tiny. It was nuts. But she thought she owned the world and was just...I don't know how to describe her. She was Katherine Hepburn 
And then Spencer, who I do regret letting go. He had this horrible beginning to his life. I got him in when he was five days old. As the litter grew, he was the crybaby. It's not like litters don't have them. Some puppies are just all drama. But I started to get concerned. It was hard for me. Socialization is critical. I didn't want to pull him. But the screams were getting worse and worse. And it came to the point where his whole day was avoiding them. He was always in a corner or somewhere similar to avoid them, staring at the floor and taut with anticipation. I pulled him out, with regret. And in the ensuing two weeks he just seemed to be getting worse. His eyes were funny, he started walking with a hunched posture, wasn't too stable in his hindend. Had a really odd affect. Look on Tiller's page and you will see a video taken at that time. We took him to the vet....I was now thinking something was terribly wrong. She discovered looseness into the atlantoaxial joint, which is near where the neck meets the head. It is extremely painful and life threatening. So this poor puppy was screaming with his litter because he was in terrible pain. And the more he screamed, the more they had harassed him. He had literally been living in a torture chamber. His life had been nothing but pain and fear.
We were given meds, with the possibility of a very expensive surgery in his future which had a 50% chance of killing him. Ghastly. He lived in a crate on my bed and I tried to develop a bond with him. All he wanted to do was to be kept safe and left alone. As I wrote before, I am not big on bonding with food. Play is the way, IMO. And to watch him, for the first time, come out of his shell and playing for the FIRST time, with all this body to protect and what a horrid association he had with it....his pluck was just so amazing and endearing. Rare, but I actually have a video of some of those first moments.....HERE And then HERE a little later.
He actually came out of his shell and if you put him on the floor would hide under the bed, then in five minutes willed his courage and went from a zero to an eleven. Once he thought it out, got his bearings, no toeings or anything, he'd just strut out with his tail up and this confident trot and then go over to Tiller and do a play bow So outrageous!
Yeah....I love 'em  I think those into "real" dogs would get a huge kick out of the right Chihuahua  |  |  | |  |
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) although I have read that the long haired Chis shed less 
