Yes, I was given a “free” chihuahua ($400 to spay her, $400 for fencing to keep her in the back yard. . .) through the agency of a niece.
People seemed to want to pick her up. Not me—except in busy pedestrian malls where a little dog would get trodden on. ALL dogs just LOVE to walk!
Tiffany twice walked with me from the Goolwa barrages to the beach and along the beach to the Murray Mouth, quite some walking. She loved it!
WALK your dog! A dog that is socialised by walking is a hell of a lot LESS likey to bite people!
I have a nice photo of her I will try to scan and post later today.
Chis are weird tho! They like to sleep under the covers! Then even dropping a really sulphurous fart doesn’t see them coming up for air! I know!
Chis have a reputation for being a yappy dog—Tiffany wasn’t! Then again if Tiffany started barking she would be told immediately “Sharrup!” not picked up and stroked and told “Good dog!” Let dogs have their dignity—they are not toys! Not even dainty (and “dainty” is pretty much the keyword in the Kennel Club description of the breed) little mutts like Tiffany.
Then a chi can manage to shiver on a 30°C day
But a crossbreed (outcome of 2 different breeds errr breeding) or mongrel (outcome of two different crossbreeds breeding) is better than a purebreed tho people pay big money for purebreeds.
A mutt has a bigger genetic heritage to draw on when fighting disease! Tiffany was pretty much 100% blind by the time she was 10, Demi (Jack Russel/Maltese Terrier) was showing some signs of cataracts when she was 13, just as an example, she had pretty good eyesight when she died aged about 13.5 years.
Oh yes, the time Demi embarrassed the errrr crap out of me. A woman and her family were feeding ducks on the banks of the Torrens. Woman sitting on a blanket holding a stale slice of bread “Does your dog Oh!” my disgusting unmannered mutt had grabbed the slice out of her hand and was gobbling it down
Could only apologise humbly.
Food refusal—teaching a dog not to accept food from strangers—is part of advanced obedience training (Open, I think, the next title after Novice.) Dunno how Demi would have gone. (She had to be put down because she had eaten rubbish she found god knows where and buggered up her stomach and blocked her bowel.)