For those of you who have been waiting, here are the long awaited pictures of Hizee's new puppy. For those of you who don't know the story of this little bundle bear with me, as an animal-lover, as I tell the tale of
Little Man.
After Hizee's beloved Chihuahua, Flo, died Hizee talked about getting a new little puppy after we returned from Canada for Christmas. This does not mean that Hizee had "moved on" after Flo's death (she still talks about her everyday and theorizes as to what she is doing in heaven) but she was ready to have another puppy.
So the day we returned to Mexico City after our flight, Hizee asked if we could go and look for a puppy. I, exhausted after our flight, reluctantly agreed and we set off on the metro in search of a place that sold puppies. After nearly two hours of searching, and asking around, and being led from one unsuccessful spot to the next we gave up our search. Hizee said she was okay with not finding a puppy and that we could wait till we got back to Zacango.
After Flo's death many people in Zacango offered Hizee puppies. The only thing was, Hizee wanted a puppy that she could carry around, even when it got older, just like she had done with Flo. So we had graciously turned down the offers. We thought we would try searching for a pup in Olinala as we had seen some smaller breed dogs in town.
We arrived back in Zacango late at night and the next day Hizee was up at 7am with a collar and leash in hand ready to go and search for a puppy. I told her not to get her hopes up, that while I knew of one house where they had poodle-type dogs, there might not be any puppies.
So we went to the house I knew of straight off and knocked on the door. Two white poodles came running to the gate and a little girl followed. When we asked if they happened to have any puppies at the moment she surprisingly responded that they had a little black one left and that she would call her mom. When her mom came to the door she told us that she had sadly just given the last "beautiful little one" away. We said thank you and were about to go when she called us back "wait, there is this tiny black one, if you want, you can have it." It turns out it was the runt and the mother didn't want to feed it anymore. I asked how old it was and she said it was only three weeks old. I said if we could find some formula for it we would come back and get it (I knew it would die without having it's mom's milk and I didn't want Hizee to go through another dog death). So we went to the vet and got some calf formula.
Hizee was esctatic about the idea of bottle feeding her little pup but I was still worried that it would die and I warned her that this might happen. And then I remembered Orange Cat. Much to our disappointment she had had another litter of kittens (there is no place to have her spayed here and we were going to get her this special birth control injection that is available but we were too late) and I thought she might take this little pup in as her own (as she is quite motherly). On the first attempt she rejected him. But then we moved her kittens to another location and stuck the pup in with the kittens while she was out for a break. When she came back she began cleaning the puppy and he began feeding...and this has been the arrangment ever since!
Hizee is over the moon about her puppy whom she calls "my Little Man." At first she said that this was just a nick-name but two days ago she announced that it would be his "real name" We are so thankful for Little Man who is now running around and thriving! (In the picture with the cat Little Man blends right in, he is the one nursing on the far right)
We made it back to Zacango for Dia de los Reyes (Kings Day) on Jan. 6 which is the gift giving day of the Christmas season. On this day there is a tradition called "Rosca de Reyes" where you slice your own piece of a special fruit covered cake that has little plactic baby Jesus dolls "emplanted" in it. If you get a slice with one of the dolls in it your are obliged to cook tamales for the person who hosted you for the "rosca." Both Bruce and Hizee got slices with the Baby Jesus. While tamales aren't quite my speciality, I did agree to make pizza for Elvira and her family.
