It's Been A While

As the title says, it has been a while indeed. We are so active on Instagram and Facebook, but I never seem to be able to keep up on the blog. I sometimes wonder if anyone even reads blogs anymore...? Or are they satisfied with the pictures they see on the other social media pages? 

But, when I last wrote a blog post, we had just added Scarlett to the family. She is now over a year old, has grown quite a bit and is such a character!

She is pretty tolerant of my craziness in dressing her up and taking her places with me.

All in all, she is a Mama's girl, very spoiled. She still has the fun playfulness of a puppy, which I get the feeling she will never outgrow! She is bigger than any of my other dogs have been, weighing a hefty seven pounds. Well, that is hefty for a Chihuahua anyway! But, we don't like to make her feel bad about her size, so we don't discuss it much.

We were going well with three dogs (Shimmer, Cooper and Scarlett) for quite a while. Then our favorite breeder, Liz Moore of Diadem Chihuahuas, announced that she would no longer be breeding Chihuahuas (gasp!!). She had a beautiful smooth coat champion girl that needed a nice forever home to retire to. Ummmm, it didn't take me long to say "Me! Me!"

So, meet Charm, our first smooth coat Chihuahua!

Charm is three years old and such a beautiful girl. Isn't that face to just die for?? Those melty eyes just do me in. 

You may have noticed that all the dogs seemed to be in the same color range - tan and white. I have missed my little tri color Stormie so very much and had been looking for another one for quite a while. They are hard to find!! But, I had put the word out among some breeders that I know across the country and about the same time that Charm was joining our family, I got word that this adorable little fluff bundle was available and POW! after I picked myself up off the floor at how hard I had fallen in love, I sent a message to her breeder.

Soon, we were selected to be the ones to adopt her and arrangements were being made to fly her here from Iowa with a puppy nanny. Before she left her home, she got to travel to a dog show with her Mom and Dad. Look at that little crazy girl, chewing on that crate door!!!

I knew then that she was going to be a spitfire of a little thing, and I was right!

She made it safely to Oregon, after a loooong day in a carry on crate. All 1.8 pounds of cuteness was now calling Cody and Company her new home. I was head over heels in love.

So was Scarlett, who could not believe that I had gotten her a playmate. These two wrestle and roll all day long.

Gah!!! Can you believe the cuteness level here?????

Tallie brought us to the never-before-number of FIVE Chihuahuas. My husband, ever the supportive trooper, said that 5 Chihuahuas don't even add up to half a Collie, which is the breed of dog I had when we were first married. 

So, with that, we settled in to enjoy ourselves, even as I knew that Shimmer's health was fading. Diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, she was not able to be very active and preferred to hang out in the back of her 'condo' (crate), away from all the antics of the two crazy puppies.

Still such a beauty, with her gleaming white coat, you would never know she was approaching 13 years of age, other than the cloudiness of her eyes.

She still had her adorable lop-sided smile, which I loved.

Sadly, one does not come out a winner for long when battling Congestive Heart Failure, even when on every medication possible. On Friday, July 28, she took her last breath while wrapped in my loving arms. She was less than a week away from her 13th birthday. I am so grateful that I had this cute picture of her from her birthday last year. 

It has been really hard for me to think about my three original girls all being gone now. The girls that helped me launch Cody and Company Pets. I have been reminiscing about all the events we went to, all the modeling they did for me, and the great group pictures we were able to photograph. There will never again be another trio like Stormie, Breezy, and Shimmer.

How I loved those girls. It makes me feel a little better knowing they are all together in Heaven and will be there to greet me someday. I do not understand why our precious pets get so little time with us, but those three girls will forever live on as the logo for Cody and Company.

Tallie has been working on her modeling skills and I think she will do very well as our new spokesmodel.

Miss Scarlett

We had a new little lady join our family two weeks ago. Meet Miss Scarlett:

After having lost both Stormie and Breezy last year, I wasn't sure that I was going to get any more dogs. In fact, I may have even gone so far as to tell my husband that I would not. But, he knows me pretty well and didn't bat an eye when I told him recently that I was looking for a new puppy.

After a LOT of dead ends and disappointments, I was put in touch with a breeder in Kennewick, Washington, who happened to have this little one available;

I mean, seriously, how do you say no to that face????

So, arrangements were made and we headed north to bring her home to live with us.

She was not impressed with the car ride, even puked on me a few times. But having raised 6 children, and one that we are still raising, I have been puked, pooped, and peed on more times than I can count, so it didn't faze me much.

(Her ears are taped to help them stay in the upright position. At this age, they tend to get floppy, and if not assisted to strengthen the cartilage, they can stay floppy - like Cooper's)

Scarlett is a pretty sassy little thing, and she had no troubles getting settled right into our household and winning over everyone (except Cooper) with her extreme cuteness.

She has definitely learned how to pose for pictures!!!

Kaelynn is in love with her, and spent the first few days sitting next to the puppy pen and reading bedtime stories to Scarlett.

She listened very intently.

She is always on the go. ALWAYS...One of her favorite places to sit, and take naps, was the toy basket.

She seemed a little overwhelmed that the box of toys that arrived from Bark Box was really all for her.

She didn't stay that way for long and the toys were soon scattered all over the kitchen.

Shimmer has accepted her with a good spirit, but Cooper is SERIOUSLY bent out of shape. I don't think he likes losing his youngest standing and now has to be the middle child. Her energy level freaks him out and for the first week he would not come out of his crate. He is slowly warming up to her, but still spends a lot of time hiding from her.

She loves the new cow bed that we got from JennaPets. We may be having to get another one, at the rate she abuses it though.

She does have a little bit of an evil streak in her. I'm not really sure what Wonder Woman said or did to insult Scarlett, but she ended up face first in the water bowl.

And I think Miss Scarlett looks a bit smug about it, don't you..?

She has her quiet, sweet moments too.

I swear when she looks at me like that, I turn to mush. She has the sweetest face in the world!

I put her first shirt on her this morning. Other than spinning in circles for about one minute, she has acted like it's not even there. I caved to pressure and taped her ears back up as they were getting very floppy. Between the two, I think she has been a bit sulking today, even laying down and refusing to come inside at one point.

I really look forward to life with Miss Scarlett. I expect that she will do great things, that Cooper will come to love her also, and that she will be a great addition to our family.

October is almost here, and it will prove to be a great month for us here at Cody and Company. We have some big things happening and some exciting news coming this next month!!

New Doggie Door

We have a very spacious kitchen and dining room, which is the heart of our home. It has a laminate floor, easy access to the back yard, tons of natural light and is just everyone's favorite place to gather.

All of this also makes it the perfect place to corral the dogs when we need to keep them in one place. While many Chihuahuas can be well house trained, mine seem to do really well when in this area, but when they are turned loose in the rest of the house, they don't hesitate to mark their territory. It can be very frustrating!

I didn't want them to have to stay crated all the time, so we figured a way to gate off the two entrances into the kitchen/dining area and let the dogs have free run.

This last year we got a new, larger refrigerator and lost the ability to slide the gate between the wall and fridge at the main entrance into the kitchen. Fortunately, there was a sliding pocket door at one time in that doorway! It had been broken since before we moved in, and sealed up.

Enter, Shawn-the-Wonder-Guy!

He tore open the door frame and pulled out the old sliding pocket door. He then created THIS:

This is the view, looking into the kitchen from the entry hall of our house. He created a mini sliding pocket door! He even made this side to match the bead board wainscoting we have in the hall way!

Look how easily it slides open and into the wall:

This is pretty critical because whoever designed this house, did a really stupid job right here. It is not spacious, with the refrigerator on one side and a cabinet on the left. There is just no room for a baby gate that swings open.

I am so happy with this door! When completely open, it sits flush with the door frame and most people don't even realize that it is there.

The dogs enjoy complete freedom to roam around in the kitchen and I don't have to worry about them going into the living room or other areas of the house while I am busy in the kitchen.

Does that little Cooper just have the cutest face or what...??? 

I didn't get a picture of the doorway that is on the other end, but it leads into the living room, is much wider, and we have a swinging baby gate there. It is visible in a lot of the videos and pictures that I post of the dogs wrestling in the big bed.

This height is perfect. The dogs can't hop over it, although most everyone in the house except short-legged me can step over it if they want to. Although you don't have to bend that much to grab it and slide it.

Pretty cool, huh?