A Touching Story I Found

The dog who thought she wasn't supposed to pee!


Several years ago my little chihuahua that weighed 2 1/2 lbs slipped out and got killed trying to get to a female in heat across the street. I was working at the time so I didn't get another dog for over 7 years. Then I had to have major surgery so I had to leave my job.

After my recovery I was getting lonely and depressed so I told my husband it was either get me another dog or get me a psychiatrist. We bought a little black and white chihuahua from a pet shop, paid $400 for him and named him Patches. Turned out he was from a puppy mill and had some problems, plus the vet said he had a little traveling salesman in his background, however, we loved him and trained him. He was very smart and he was precious to us.

Then one day a friend who had gotten a puppy that was part chihuahua, named Sheena, called and wanted to know if we wanted her. We had seen her, so we decided to take her and they brought her to us wearing a rhinestone collar and brought along a brass, human style bed with green velvet mattress. When they brought her we told Patches she was his puppy. From then on they were inseparable.

Sheena's previous owners said they could not house break her and were fed up. Turned out they had her in the basement with news papers spread out and if she went off of the paper to potty they whipped her with a rolled up news paper. When she came to our house she would get in her bed and sit and tremble and pee in her bed. No dog urinates in their own bed! But she didn't know what else to do, she was so confused. She thought she was not supposed to pee anywhere.

We loved on her, we walked her out in the grass, when she got on the sidewalk because she was not familiar with the feel of grass under her feet, we would gently put her back in the grass and encourage her to "Go Pee". One day my husband was working with her and she peed in the grass. He loved all over her and praised what a good girl she was. That was all it took. She was prettymuch house broken over night.

We got rid of the brass bed and got her a regular dog bed like Patches had and they both slept in the bathroom at night. She would go get in bed with him and after a while he would get up and go get in her bed. Pretty soon she was in bed with him again. Eventually he gave up and let her sleep with him. It was so cute.

We decided to let them breed because I wanted to give my sister a puppy. The first time she had only one pup and it was still born, but four months later she came into heat again. That time she had four healthy pups and my sister got the pick of the litter..

We moved to FL when Patches was three and a half years old and Sheena was about three. In June we went back to WV for a visit and while there Patches got killed. That is another whole story...another time.

Sheena was with him when he got killed and she was devastated. I let her sleep with me that night. We didn't know what to do for her so we left and came back to FL the next day, unable to enjoy our visit any more. When we got here Sheena ran around looking for Patches and finally she got under the table and cried actual tears. My neighbor and I were crying also. Sheena was our only pet for the rest of her life and we took her every where we went except to restaurants.

Sheena became the favorite pet of the neighborhood. Everyone loved Sheena. An elderly man came to visit her every day on the pretense he was coming for coffee, and I would let him give her a Puperoni. She loved those things. Finally he started buying them so he could hide one on his person and let her hunt for it when he got here.

He and his wife moved back to Ga and we went to visit them once. Sheena ran to him like a long lost friend, which is what he was, and when we got ready to go to the motel she didn't want to leave.

For Christmas of 2000 my husband and I bought Sheena a wagon. We put it together on Christmas eve like parents would for a kid. On Christmas day we lined it with soft blankets and took her for a stroll. She got out to pee and we put her back in and she just really seemed to enjoy it. She went out in her wagon every day from then until the day she died.

Sheena died in 2001 of congestive heart failure and arthritus. She also had cataracts. I took her out to pee, which we still praised her for after all these years, and she fell down and couldn't get back up. She looked at me with the saddest eyes as if to tell me she was too tired to go on. I had her euthanized the next day and I still have her ashes. She was 14 years old. She was absolutely the best pet I have ever owned. What a wonderful gift those people gave us because they didn't know how to house break or paper train a puppy.

I now have two Jack Russell Terriers and also still have the wagon!

Nancy