Happy Birthday Bug!

My pretty pretty princess Chihuahua, Bug, is one year old today. I had to work this day last year, and my friend and coworker, Hope, had her husband come in to the clinic for a bad ear infection. When he got home, ChiChi, Bug's biological mama, was outside and had given birth to a little boy. He later died and they think he just failed to thrive after being born on the cold hard ground and being left there for a time. The others were born in the warm house surrounded by excited little girls.
I have always been a big dog person. I love big lovable beasts. Since I was a little girl, I have never ever been afraid of dogs. I am the nut who will walk up to any dog, rottweiler, pit bull, german shepherd, it does not matter. Stray, in a fence...I LOVE dogs. Ahhh! But I HATED Chihuahuas! A lot of people do. Who wants a yapping snapping ankle biting demon who thinks it's ten feet tall and bullet proof?
When Hope showed me pictures, I was enthralled. And when she showed me the tiny little girl with the long melty shaped heart on her head, I lost it. I was struck by the lightning bolt. I fell deeply in love. She was marked from day one as my girl baby love. Every day that I saw Hope, I would demand more pictures and progress reports. This little puppy was the boldest, fiercest, biggest, bossiest pup of the litter.  Finally, on the Sunday after my 19th wedding anniversary, I got to hold my sweetie. Hope offered me the AKC papers, but that didn't matter because she was going to get spayed. No dog was good enough to touch my precious girl, anyway.  She was so tiny, less than a pound, that you could have fit two of her in the palm of Mr. Bubble's hand with room to spare.
Mr. B liked her and thought she was cute, everyone did, too, even after giving me shit about getting a Chihuahua. What clinched their love for her was a few days later when she almost died.
Mr. B (before he was Mr. B) was in the shower and put her in our room. She got out somehow and Simon bit her on the head. Her head swelled up like a balloon and she cried and cried. Mr. B said it was the most heart breaking sound he ever heard, and gets watery eyed to remember it.  One of the options was put her down. And she was so miserable and pathetic, her eyes swelled shut, that I just wanted to give her peace. Mr. B rescued her. He said that she deserved a chance to live and be given all our efforts. So she stayed in puppy ICU and came home the next day with meds. She cried all that night in my arms and I was up all night just holding her and praying over her to any Saint who would hear me. I was a rough rough night. The next day, William sat at the edge of the bed and she looked over at him, stood up and took two hops at him wagging her tail. I knew right then she would be fine. That was the moment he became Mr. Bubbles, Bug's Big Daddy, her sworn defender and the love of her little life. She may cry for me, but she also knows I am her disciplinarian. Mr. Bubbles is her slave and pushover. He is her best bud, her daddy, her love.
He cries when he thinks of almost twenty years from now when she will be old and someday die. He says he will never love another dog. And he doesn't even like animals that much. He doesn't care that he is a big big dude who wears tshirts and hoodies from heavy metal concerts and looks like an ex-con that would break a person's neck for looking at the sky cross eyed. He holds her proud and tucks her in his sweatshirts.  That is his daughter, his girl baby. When she went into heat for the first time, right before she was spayed, she kept sticking her little fanny in Simon's face. I told Mr. B that she was saying "Hey, Simon, you're an old dog and I'm a new trick!" He would get SO mad at me, yell at Simon (poor old thing was so confused) and told me to quit being an ass.
Today is her birthday, and he can't wait to get home to her. She is laying against me now, covered in a blankie and shivering, trying to get warm.
I am still thrown for a loop when I realize that Mr. B and I are now Chihuahua people!

This was taken after her head healed up. You can see her eyes are wonky. They are ok now, but when she is angry, the one moves all crazy.

Her and my mom's slippers. She had to kill them for some reason.

1. Bug and her brother, Rex. He was my mother-in-law's puppy from the same litter. She is the one getting all up in his butt. She was SO aggressive and dominant. Rex died of parvo.

Aren't those the prettiest ears you have ever seen that were not on a rabbit? When Bug was tiny and smaller than our two pound Lionhead Meany Girl Bunny, Meany Girl would beat the shit out of Bug. Meany has been the only animal that ever got Bug to back down from a standoff! I guess it takes a crazy tiny girl to recognize the craziness in another tiny girl!