On Sunday, September 7th we walked into Pet Supermarket to get Max some cat food and met this little girl:

She was very scared and shy.  She wanted me to pet her, but wasn’t sure.  Then she looked at me and I think she suddenly she realized, I was a good one.  I bent down to her and she came up to my face and gave me the tiniest lick on my nose.  Tears welled in my eyes.  I knew this dog needed me.

Her name is Kiki.  She is about 2 1/2 years old.  She is a Terrier mix.  Looks like she is probably a Rat Terrier, with maybe some Chihuahua in there?  She is a little thing, she weighs about 13 lbs.  One of the first things you will notice about her is that she has a crooked front left leg.  This is part of her sad history.

Kiki has had a rough life so far.  We know she was in an abusive situation, that is where the broken leg came from.  It healed without being tended to.  I can’t imagine the pain she had to have been in.  She then ended up in a shelter where she was adopted by a lady who had 11 dogs.  She was a hoarder.  The dogs were not house trained.  They were not socialized or exercised.  Her neighbor had adopted a cat from the agency that ended up with Kiki, the Tasha, the founder of the agency, tried to talk the lady into letting her find homes for some of the animals but she wouldn’t let her.  The lady was subsequently evicted and that is when the Tasha got Kiki.  She had her for a month trying to get her socialized, at least partially house trained, and just calm before trying to find her a forever home.  Kiki has been with her for about 3 months and has really shown what a wonderful dog she is.

When we first met Kiki she would growl at Stuart sometimes.  Actually, she growled here and there at anyone.  Stuart said she growled at me a couple of times, but I never heard it. (the wonders of being deaf, huh?)  We talked to her Tasha and asked about fostering her for a little while before deciding about adoption, explaining that we weren’t sure if our big old cat would accept a dog in the family.  We did foster a dog for a little while once before and Max did not accept him at all.  However, he was a big dog, and a puppy.  We were hopeful that this situation would be different.  Kiki is smaller than Max, and she has lived with cats before so she is used to them.  Tasha understood and said she was willing to let us foster her for a few weeks before we adopted her.  We took an application with us to talk it over and get things started.

On Thursday of that week, right after I got my hip injection, Kiki arrived at our home.

She was not too sure she really wanted to be here at first.   I felt so bad.  She was very attached to Tasha.  Kiki cried and cried when she left her with us.

After a few hours she got a bit more settled.  She did play some with me that night, and slept curled up beside me.  It became apparent she was going to bond with me, but it was going to be a little bit harder with Stuart.   So I had him give her treats, and spend more time with her and suddenly I came out to find….

They are best buddies now!  She is still wary of him when he has on his work clothes, but she warms up fast as soon as he puts on his every day clothes.  I guess she just doesn’t like a man dressed up!  She used to get very upset when she got crowed.  We live in a small place now, if two people pass in the hall, it is crowded.  Kiki would often growl and cower if we were suddenly over her, she has gotten used to it now.  She is adapting so fast, I’m so very proud of her.

In these two pictures you can see how her leg healed when it was broken.  We still have to take her to see a vet to see if she is in pain, or if this will affect her in her later in life, or if there is anything we should do about it?  We know we can’t afford to pay for her to have major reconstructive surgery at this time, but if she needs to have surgery, we can start to save for it now.  She does not act as if it hurts.  She runs and jumps without favoring it.  In the photo it looks as if she is favoring it, but when she walks she puts her weight on it.  It breaks my heart to know someone hurt her like that.  I can only promise her that I will try my best to make sure no one ever hurts her again.

We were asked if we would keep her name.  We thought about it….should we change it?  Truthfully, we wouldn’t have named her Kiki, but she likes it.  She listens to it.  We thought about changing it to Mini, it sounds close so I’m sure she would get used to it.  We thought it would be cute because we have a Max.  But she’s Kiki.  Stuart often calls her Kikster!  He has also called her Yoda because of her ears.  She does have Yoda ears.   A friend said she could have multiple names, Kiki Mini Yoda…now we keep playing around and singing her songs every night adding names on to her.  hahaha  However, she is Kiki.

We knew it was a good sign between Kiki and Max when they didn’t chase each other.  They were a little curious, but mainly stayed out of each others way.   Then on day 3 I was lying in bed reading and Kiki fell asleep on one side of me, and Max came up and went to sleep on the other side.  I was in a pet sandwich!  Wow!  I was amazed! Then yesterday I walked in the living room and saw this:

They had both taken my seat!  Most importantly though, I think they are pretty comfortable with each other!  Every once in a while they will chase each other.  I’m not sure if they are really chasing each other, or playing.  I think they are playing.   When they catch each other, they just stop.  It’s kind of funny.

We haven’t officially adopted Kiki yet.  However, we do plan to.  We just want to have her checked out by the vet first.  I can’t imagine what they could possibly say that would make us not adopt her.  We just feel it would be irresponsible for us to go into this adoption without knowing everything.

For those of you who have followed my blog for a while know how much the loss of my dog Sandy left a huge open hole in my heart.  It has been about 2 1/2 years since she died.  We feel it is a good time for us to add a new member into our pack.  We think Kiki is a good fit.  I also feel Sandy has had a little paw in selecting her.  There have been a few little things that she does that are just so “Sandy”.  Suddenly I can talk about Sandy without crying.  I feel this sadness lifted.  She has not been replaced in any way, I feel she wanted me to help another dog the way I helped her.  I feel like I’m fulfilling a promise, and her memory is living on in this new little furry baby.

This has been a very joyful time and a very hard time for me.  People who are going to adopt a pet have many things to consider.  Chronically ill people have many more things to consider.   This is a huge responsibility.   I have been doing so much better recently I thought I could take care of Kiki mostly on my own.   I was writing stories of the future.  Just as worrying does no good because we can’t do anything about the future, expecting the future to be as the same as it is today is also fruitless.  Everything changes.  We have to remember, we can’t predict the future.  When things hit us from out of the blue, we have to make room for it and adjust.

I’ll explain in my next post.    …..teaser……my hip condition is complicated so, I suddenly have a dog and can’t walk her, at least not right now………