Don’t kid yourself: they are the addiction.  You get your first Chi and you fall in love. Eventually, you get a “friend” for the first Chi, so you have two.  You end up connecting with other Chihuahua owners and realize that having three is as easy has two. So you get a third, but this one is a rescue.  If you have a heart, you quickly learn that Chihuahuas are one of the top three dogs abandoned at/in shelters in the entire nation--just behind the Pitt Bull, (I’m sorry, “Staffordshire Terrier”) which, of course, makes no sense.

If you keep your eyes and ears open, you reach a point in which you simply cannot ignore the problem in front of you. Yes, a large percentage of the “Chihuahuas” in shelters are Chi mixes, but you cannot ignore the fact that there is a Chihuahua in a cage somewhere. Whether you opt to start doing “chip ins” for medical care, donating to rescues, networking some of the more extreme cases, taking in fosters or simply adding to your own Chi pack, you will find it impossible to not care. Although all of this is altruistic, there is a compulsive side to it.

Like all good addictions, they are triggered by a cumulation of loss or, perhaps, a traumatic loss. In my case, my 5 year old (and only) Chihuahua Kobii Coco was killed by a coyote--- in my front yard, virtually in front of me. In the blogging section of this website, you will get the details around that and how to prevent it from happening to you, but suffice to say that her death cut deep.  I cried for two weeks straight. I raged, I posted fliers, I contacted officials and experts, as well as conversed with other owners of small dogs who lost their lives to urban coyotes.  I learned that most dog owners think it will never happen to their dogs; nearly everyone thinks coyotes live “somewhere else” or, worse, “come down from the hills when they get hungry.” Wrong on all counts.

This website is dedicated to the enormous love I have for the breed, for the incredible blessings they are to me every day, to the education of Chi owners everywhere, and the celebrate both the “fun” of having Chihuahuas and the importance of being a good owner, oops, I meant “parent.”

Melissa