The Diet is Working

Chi-Chi's wacky rash showed up once again. It is definitely worse in the summer, but she gets it in the winter too. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it hits which is frustrating. The creams we had from the last time just weren't working, and since we were going to be on vacation for a week, I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving my dad with a sickly dog to look after. Time for the HOUSE OF PAIN, also known as "the vet."

While waiting for the vet I plopped Chi-Chi on the cat scale because I think she looks like she lost weight and wanted to know before the doctor came in. The numbers were down! I waited for the vet to come in and I had her weigh chubsey-ubsey to get the official weight. Drumroll please......11.6 pounds. She lost 2 pounds in two months! The vet was thrilled and so was I. She wanted to know what I was doing and I told her that Chi-Chi was on a no-snack diet and was eating 1/4 cup of Purina Overweight Management dog food twice a day.

Chi-Chi was given a supply of two antibiotics. She was better by the time we left for Montral, but I had to make up a chart for my dad to follow. There are two different meds and each one had differing dosage that changed from twice a day to every other day to 1/2 a pill. It was confusing for me, so imagine a 72 year old trying to administer the meds.

Chi-Chi's pet insurance has a rider that won't cover any of her rash issues! Poor baby came to us with a rash and I guess the pet insurance company made a good decision for them because she has been to the vet many times over this freaking rash that comes and goes at will! I still have the vet send the bill to the pet insurance company. I noticed that they wrote down something else on the bill so I am wondering if they will pay or not.

Chi-Chi has moved from the obese to the overweight category. We have a ways to go, but her progress has been great and is very encouraging! Of course we were gone for a week and my dad was taking care of the dogs. I swear that Chi-Chi looked a little plumper than when we had left. My husband said I was crazy...He may be right.

All Righty, Chi-Chi is just Fat

Normally when you are waiting for blood test results, you are hoping for them to be negative, right? How come I was disappointed when the vet called me to say that Chi-Chi does not have a thyroid problem? I guess I was hoping that was the problem so we could just put her on meds and she would lose the excess pounds. Does that make me a bad surrogate mommy??

Crap. Well, now we just have some work ahead of us. We've been testing out the new food. She loved the wet stuff, but it did not love her. She got the runs from it. We won't be using that food. Just as well though because it was difficult setting up the dog food because they were both eating wet and they were both different formulas. Now if I were the one who fed them, this wouldn't be a problem. My 71 year old dad feeds them in the afternoon and I had to label which one was which. I already prep the food for him and put the correct amount in the bowls, but he could still give the dog the wrong food because once the label was off, they looked the same.

She likes the Purina OM (overwight management). I didn't try the wet OM because of the first attempt with another wet food. I went right for the dry. She ate it. Now we'll see how she does with diet food. I am hoping that it makes a differnce. I am also trying to exercise her more. The two have to have an effect, right? Stay tuned.

Chi-Chi update, a.k.a. the Fat Chihuahua

Chi-Chi also went for her check up in June. It was supposed to be May, but I just couldn't get there then. After being on No-Snacks and dividing up her food to two 1/4 cup portions twice a day, I was expecting her to weigh less. I have to say though, that she did not look smaller to me.

When we were in the waiting room, others who were waiting struck up a conversation with me. "What kind of dog is that?" they asked. I knew what they were really asking though. They thought that she couldn't possibly be a chihuahua because she was so big. When people think chihuahua, they think Paris Hilton's Tinkerbell. You know, that anorexic bitch. And her dog is so skinny too....

Okay, first off. My dogs are both real chihuahuas. The "teacup" or "pocket" type dogs are not real. They were bred down to get them that size. It is dangerous to have them that size because they have lots of breathing issues and get hurt very easily. They are often severely injured by falling off of a couch because they are so fragile. They are not recognized by the American Kennel Club as being chihuahuas. My dogs are the real deal. They are both spayed and so that puts extra weight on them.

Okay, enough of my fat rant. So I tell them that she is a fat chihuahua. They laugh and say that they thought she was a chihuahua, but that she was so big they weren't sure. blah, blah, blah. We finally get to see the vet. She weighs Chi-Chi on the cat scale and her weight was 13.6 pounds. My dog has to be the only dog that can go on a diet and gain weight. I was upset. The vet said that they could run the blood work-up on her to see if she has a thyroid issue. She said it was up to me because the blood tests are very costly. I wanted to go ahead and do it because if it is her thyroid, it would just be a matter of putting her on a medication. If her blood tests come back negative, then we will switch her food to a diet food to see if that helps.

The vet sent me home with a giant bag of various brands of diet dog food. Some wet and some dry so that I can see which ones she likes best before buying any. That was nice of her.

Okay, Chi-Chi also has skin irritations. These come and go. I can't pin it down to a particular time of year. It was pretty bad this winter. Then she will scratch and scratch and make it worse. She has very little hair as it is, so I have to keep her nails short and filed down or she will easily tear her skin due to the scratching. I asked if she had seasonal allergies. Since she wasn't sneezing at all, she thought it was more likely that Chi-Chi had an allergic reaction to food. Great. More food issues. She was going to give me a cream to put on her to soothe the itching.

When I went to pay, the cashier was calculating the bill. Chi-Chi also was getting Advantage for flea prevention. Then the vet came by and gave the cashier the bag of food (free samples) along with the lotion. The cashier looked at the lotion and said, "I am not charging you for this. You are already paying so much" and she just tossed it in the bag without adding it in. I thought that was very nice of her. The bill was $650! Thank goodness I have pet insurance.

Seriously. If you do not have pet insurance, you should really consider it. I wasn't sure it was worth it because my regular office visits are $75, and everything they do is extra. Shots etc. The pet insurance gives you like $15 back for an office visit. So I was thinking that I would be paying more in premiums than what I would be getting back. Until I realized that I wasn't paying the premiums for the routine stuff anyway. In the event of something serious, I did not want to make a decision based on what it was going to cost me. My dog has cancer? Okay, start chemotherapy. That isn't something I would be able to afford unless I had the insurance. Thankfully, none of my dogs have had anything catastrophic like that, but Pinky's surgery was expensive. I was able to recoup 2/3 of what I paid for that. Yep, pet insurance is worth the premium.

Fat Chihuahua

So how much should a chihuahua weigh??? I'm not talking about those teacup varieties, either because they aren't the real deal and are not acknowledged by the American Kennel Club (AKC). The accepted breed standard disqualifies any dog over 6 pounds or under 3 pounds. Unless your chihuahua is supposed to be a show dog, it doesn't matter as long as she's healthy. My vet says that there are weight variations for pets just like their are weight variations for people. Some Chihuahuas had bigger parents and so they are likely to be bigger.

That being said, Chi-Chi is fat. She is starting to look like a football with legs. Here she is looking very football-like.













She is 3.5 years old. She was a very thin chi for the first year that we had her. We went on a trip for 3 weeks and when we came home, I swear she looked enormous. My dad definitely overfed her. Well, here it is 1 year later and she is chunkier than ever.

We were just at the vet on January 30, 2007. She was having some pain when she moved backwards so I took her in. Of course, by the time I was able to get an appointment, she seemed to be in no pain. I was worried that her weight was causing the problem. The vet said she weighed 13.8 pounds. The vet's biggest concern was that I was feeding her and Pinky just once a day. She told me to break up their food into two meals, giving them less. I brought the ingredients of Chi-Chi's dog food and she said it wasn't the food that was making her fat. It doesn't matter if I bought diet food or not because if she is getting snacks during the day, that is going to be the culprit.


I know for a fact that both dogs are getting snacks and tidbits during the day. She advised that we cut out all snacks immediately. Feed her 1/4 cup of food twice per day and then they would re-weigh in May when she comes in for her annual check-up. She should show a loss by then. If not, they will do blood work on her to see if she has a thyroid problem.

I weighed her last night on my scale and she weighed 13.2 pounds. Because it is a different scale, I don't know if she really lost any weight at all, but at least I have a starting point for our home scale. I shall weigh her once a week to see how she is doing.

Crayola® Kryptonite

I was awakened last night at 1:15 am from a deep sleep to the unmistakable sound of a Chihuahua heaving. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a Chihuahua owner more than the sound of vomiting. There isn’t much worse in life than rolling over in bed into a puddle of cold puke, unless you have a dog with loose sphincter muscles but that is a story for another day…Luckily, the culprit this time was Chi-Chi and she is most considerate. When she feels the vomit urge strike, she leaps off the bed to hide under it where she does her dastardly deed. Of course, you are only lucky if it is at night because at least then you know what is transpiring. It can happen when no one is there to see it and then we play a game of “What’s that stench and where is it coming from?”

So there I was at 1:30 am attempting to coax Chi-Chi out from under the bed. AR was snoring away oblivious to all. She kept making that wretched dry heave sound without producing any vomit. She must have eaten a bad crayon or perhaps Chi-Chi had just discovered what her Crayola® limit was for the day. Either way, something needed to be done to remedy the situation.

I pretended not to care and climbed back into bed, allowing my arm to hang off of it so that my hand touched the floor. Slowly I heard Chi-Chi inch her way over to my side under the bed (AR’s side is the one she prefers to puke under), until her cold wet nose was flush with my hand. I gently scratched her head and rubbed under her chin all the while whispering to her that she needn’t hide under the bed since she isn’t a bad dog just because she feels sick over and over until she was finally out from under the bed.

Up until this point, Pinky was fully enjoying the luxury of being the only Chihuahua in the bed. She shot me a dirty look when I pulled Chi-Chi onto the comforter. Success at last! I scooped up the ill-feeling Chihuahua and sprinted into the kitchen with my catch. I dared not to release the petite hound for experience has taught that she would immediately dart under the couch, thus beginning the next round of coaxing.

With one hand filled with Chihuahua, the other managed to open the fridge door and pull out a bottle of tonic water. Tonic water is the great elixir when a tummy is upset. It works for humans, so why not for Chihuahuas? I somehow unscrewed the bottle cap with one hand and poured a small amount in a glass Pyrex dish, also known is this home as a dog bowl. I held the bowl up to Chi-Chi’s mouth and her head bent down slightly to inspect what was proffered. After a quick sniff, she flatly refused the tonic.

I took a spoon and tried unsuccessfully to get Chi-Chi to drink from it. Finally I dipped my finger into the tonic and touched it to Chi-Chi’s lips. She accepted the tonic and so we continued finger to bowl, tonic to Chihuahua lips until it was done. It was a painstakingly slow process.
I sent Chi-Chi out into the yard thinking that she might enjoy a chomp of some grass to force the vomit issue, but she did not partake of the green substance. Promptly she emitted a huge poo smattered with flecks of Vivid Violet crayon, the last Crayola® to meet with Chi-Chi’s vice-like jaws.

Chi-Chi scampered back into the house and was already peacefully slumbering before I reached the bed. I spied my daughter’s box of Crayolas® that have already proven to be one Chihuahua’s Kryptonite. I cavalierly tossed the sweet-smelling wax into the garbage without thinking how I was going to explain the missing crayons to her and retreated to the bedroom. Pinky had already assumed her rightful place atop my pillow. As I settled back into bed, Chi-Chi snuggled up to my legs and Pinky heaved a deep sigh. I looked at the red LCD numbers on the clock that said 2:10 am. Only three more hours until it’s time to get up I thought and instantly fell asleep. All was right with the world.

Finding an Adoption Agency

Where does one go to find an adoption agency??? We started with the internet and essentially asked for every agency that had China adoption programs to send us information. We didn’t know if a local (NJ-based) agency was an advantage or not so we did not limit our search geographically. We were inundated with mail pretty quickly. We scanned through all the documentation, but how do you choose?

One agency caught our eye. They were called Children’s Hope International and referred to themselves as CHI. Chi is the universal life force in China, so we took this to be a good sign. We went to their website and saw that the NYC office was having an information meeting in early September, 2004. We decided that we would go to the meeting and meet the people and have our questions ready.

In the meantime, prior to the meeting, I started doing real research on the agency. I called the Attorney General’s office in NY and Saint Louis (the agency’s HQ is St. Louis) to see if there were a lot of complaints/fraud against them. I also checked with the Better Business Bureau in each city to see the same. There were very few complaints, which made me feel pretty good.

I also contacted several couples who had recently adopted via CHI. All gave me positively glowing recommendations, which is what I expected simply because they wouldn’t refer us to someone who was unhappy, right? Still, it felt good to speak with someone who had actually used their services and were pleased with their professionalism.

A great resource for adoption information is the yahoo groups. For China, Adoptive Parents China http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a-parents-china/ was invaluable. I was able to ask people for agency recommendations there as well. It is a great place to ask a question of those who have BTDT.

We filled out a preliminary application and I wrote out a check for $100. I had to include three photos of the two of us. I decided that we would take the application to the information meeting. If we liked what we saw and heard, we would give them the application and check; if not, we would just walk away and look elsewhere.

Were we really doing this? Sure looks like it. The meeting was three days away. I could hardly wait!