Javier the Chihuaha

 

 

 Once upon a time Javier was in an animal shelter waiting to come home with us. We visited with him daily so he could get used to us and to make sure he really was a perfect fit. My need to nurture and his need to cuddle were instant clicks.

 

We were placed in windowless visitor rooms where the sound of Nena laughing and squealing echoed and made him even more nervous. He would tremble the entire visit. Because of this I tried not to stay longer than 15 minutes or so. I wanted him to know our voices and our smells.

 

I really enjoyed just holding him like a little baby. The kids were allowed to hold him but only when they were sitting down. He was very nervous and cold. We couldn't wait to bring him home.

 

 
 

 

This is how he would be if I put him down. He looked so very scared and pitiful, so I tried to hold him the entire visit.

 

Finally we got to bring him home. This is his very first car ride with us. He did very well and by the time we got to our house he was laying down in his little house.

 

When it started to warm up outside, I put him in the back yard. It gets plenty of sunshine most of the day. He likes to soak u the rays.

 

 

Our mornings are usually a little too chaotic for Javier. On this particular morning he decided it was safer to hide under my bed while I took a shower. My daughter chanted baby and tried to reach him, but he knew it was safer to play keep away.

 

 

He likes to sit here when the kids aren't around or they are ignoring him. Sometimes if we do snack time or breakfast in the living room and the kids aren't moving around too much he will sit there while we eat, or behind my husband on the couch. I know he has a personality somewhere deep inside of him, I just can't get him to open up yet.

 

Checking things out while the kids aren't around.

 

I think in this one he is frustrated because I really wanted a picture of him with his ears up. I think he looks like a bat dog and he is really cute when he does that, but he doesn't like me to take a picture of his ears. This is one of the blankets that I gave him for a bed. I am still working with my daughter on this, because if she sees him getting too comfy on the blankets, she will snatch them away.

About the only time he wants anything to do with his human sister is when she is sleeping. I like to think of it as Sleeping with the Enemy. He will sleep in her room the entire night and be fine, but the minute she is awake he is running away.

Last night I had a dream that I heard him come into my room. I had put the big blanket he had been sleeping on away, but I thought I heard him jump into the laundry basket. For hours the thought of him sleeping in my laundry basket was nagging at me. Finally I had to get up to check on my daughter so I looked in the basket and he was not there. I searched the entire upstairs, the downstairs, did it again. Came downstairs looked in the back yard. I was thinking that maybe I had put him outside and didn't remember. Then I started thinking that he had escaped from the back yard. I looked the entire house over, and decided I should try to sleep. But I couldn't sleep, I had to get up out of bed and look everywhere again. I looked in the closets in the bathrooms, and again in the laundry basket, but I couldn't see him. So finally I said to myself, he has to be in this house, and I turned on the lights in my room and started digging through the clothes and there he was laying snug as a bug under a pair of jeans. I let him stay there most of the day and kept the kids away from him.

This is Javier at a dog park. He had been rolling in the grass just moments before. He sniffed at some big doggies through the fence, peed three times, drank some water and laid down to nap the entire thirty minutes we were there. I think we have adopted the laziest dog in the world.




Stand fast in the faith... be strong.
1 Corinthians 16:13