Here Come the Cuties...

Here are the two smallest members of our family. Cocobear is a long-coat Chihuahua we adopted from the Jefferson County shelter on July 3, 2007. He was one of the dogs from a hoarding case involving many dogs, cats and farm animals. Poor little dude had been kept in a small filthy cage for his whole life, but we saw that he needed us. We "tried out" four or five of the Chihuahuas at the shelter, and Coco was the one who seemed most housebroken and like a true diamond in the rough. He was! This little guy loves all of us and holds his own with the big dogs. He LOVES to go hiking and snuggling in blankets. We all love him so much that a few months ago, the kids asked if we could get another little dog...
We contacted MANY local rescue groups, filled out countless applications for small dogs and scanned petfinder.com for small dogs in shelters. Most of the rescues never even replied to our emails, and all but one of the applications came back as "no" or no reply... That rescue only had one small dog at the time, and he was special needs and too delicate. The shelters near us charge $300 or more for small dogs, and they're usually gone within a day. And the shelters on the other side of WA had the same problem with small dogs getting adopted too quickly for us to make it to meet them.
So on a whim, we looked at breeders in WA. We found Gypsy at a breeder near Spokane- she was almost one year old and being sold because she was too big for breed standard. Nine pounds is too big for a show or breeding Pom, but the perfect size for our family. We loaded up Coco and the kids and drove to Spokane. It was love at first sight. Little Gypsy looks so much like the breed I originally wanted- a Papillon. She is a sweet, fun little gal- her only issue is that she gets carsick, so sadly she can't go everywhere with us. We adore this gal and think she feels the same about us.