Thursday, April 21, 2011

Yorkipoo Madness (or Why did I say yes... to THREE???!?)

These are our three Yorkipoo's (yorkie poo's, yorkiepoo's, yorki poo's....sp??)
I know, I know, they aren't real dogs... they are too small to do any good, they can't be potty trained.... yada yada yada. 
Or so says Wood Genius.  (Secretly, however, I have seen him cuddling & playing with them too! ;-D )
However, I have to say this:  these little dudes are sooo sweet, they love us, we love them, they cuddle, and they ARE potty trained.... well, kennel trained, anyway.
Wood Genius calls them yapper rat dogs.  We call them adorable!


Who can deny this cuteness though? 
This is Gustaf, or Guss, or Gussguss.
He is a  merle yorkipoo.  That means that he has one blue eye & one black eye.
It also means he looks a little dorky from time to time.  But he is SOOO cute!!!


He looks like a chinchilla or something.  Whatever a small furry rodent would look like. 

Here he is in a teacup.  No, it isn't a real teacup, it's one of those planters, but it still LOOKS cute as heck, doesn't it? 

Here is Gussguss just chillin' in the teacup~ these pups are a yorkshire terrier x miniature poodle cross, so I think they will likely get a little larger.  We think they are about 4 or 5 months old right now.  Story is, we found them at the pound, & they are all siblings.  We couldn't just take home one......oh no, I just couldn't do it.... so, we now have all three.



Typical Guss look ~ that little black nose is just so ADORABLE!  And my daughter just loves the fact that he has that one blue merle eye.



Here we see that Guss actually mans up once in a while.  These three siblings play very well together, but they also rough house very well together.  Jack is clearly the alpha amongst them, & believe it or not, the little girl Penny is the next one, and then there's poor Guss at the bottom.  But he does man up from time to time.


This is Sir Giacomo, or more commonly, Jack.  Like I said, he is the alpha.  And he takes that role very seriously.  When we found them at the pound, they were in a long cold cell, & he & Guss were protecting the little sister, Penny.  When he thought they were being accosted, he literally stood over the other two, ( while they hid under his belly) & snarled at the pound warden.  It took several days of constant loving to bring these three little sugars back to feeling like happy, playful pups. 


He is now a very happy, well-adjusted pup, however.  And I think I favor him over the other two just a bit.  He is a very good dog, & has learned to share the dog dish much better, as well as being the first to potty train.  In fact, if the other two make a peepee mistake, he really gets after them.  But he is also loving towards his siblings, and licks them & cuddles with them too.


I just can't believe that someone left these little guys in a box & then called the pound to come get them. We are pretty sure this must have been what happened because the box that the pound warden said they came in didn't have any urine or poo in it at all, nor was the puppies' hair dirty with it, or even leaves or dirt.  Their hair WAS matted, but it wasn't filthy, so I think that whoever had these little guys must have called the pound right away. 


I guess I should start from the beginning ~ The pound warden said that somebody called & said there was a box of puppies in a factory parking lot.  He went to pick them up, & put them in a cell at the pound.  The very next day, I happened to come along asking if they had any dogs in that I could take a look at. 

My daughter had been begging... I mean BEGGING!... me for a dog for some time (about 5 yrs), & so we had gone to the pound in our town to look for one, but the one that she wanted had already been spoken for.  She was rather heartbroken about it, so I told her that I would be going to my mom's town with the 3 younger kids to help out with some yard work, & that while I was there, I would stop by their pound to see if they had any dogs that might look a little like that one she had wanted so badly.


When I got there, the pound warden told me that he only had three pups in, so I asked if I could take a look.  Well, when I went into see them, I saw that there were some other dogs being boarded there as well, & it was plain that one of those boarded dogs had parvo, as there was a mess of dark red bloody diarrhea stool in it's cell.  The three yorkipoo pups, however, had absolutely nothing in their cell, so I figured that if they DID have parvo, it would have been only just barely.  At any rate, I saw the little girl, Penny (Miss Penitence), & I knew immediately that my daughter would just love her.  So we bought her & took her home.  Well, those other two dogs were just eating away at my conscience & my heart.  All night long I couldn't help but think how cold it was in that pound cell, & how that other dog  a few cells down had parvo, & SOOOO ~
the very next day,  I called my dad, & asked him if he could please go get the other 2 pups for me, & I drove the 2 hours back to my parents' town & picked them up! 


Am I a sucker??  OOOhhhh yeah!!  Here is Jack all washed up.  We waited a few days for them to feel comfortable, and then gave them all a bath & a nice brushing to remove the matted hair.  Of course, they all acted like new pups then!  It was also sooo sweet to see Penny meet her brothers at my folks' house.  (Yes, I took her back with us, so that she could help them feel better on the ride back home.  Which she did.  I think because they saw that she trusted us, they did too.)


Another pic of Guss.


And this is Miss Penitence, or Penny.  She is just such a sweet-natured doll. 


Isn't she precious?  I honestly can't imagine who or how they managed to end up in a pound cell on the very day that I actually consented (finally!, my heart wasn't ready to commit to a new dog after Amadeus, our Standard poodle.) to get another dog.  The only possible explaination I have is that God blessed us.


This is her sassy pose, & she does look like this a good deal of the time!  ;-D 


Now you are probably wondering how we could know that these are Yorkipoo's if they were just some mutts in a pound?  Well, I will tell you, first of all, we did a lot of research as to what various terrier cross pups looked like, then we took them into a groomer, to have their coats examined.  Now, having owned a poodle before, I can tell you that I was positive that these pups had to be part poodle, because their undercoats are curly, don't shed, and are soft as silk.  And looking at their faces, you can clearly see that it is Yorkshire terrier that has to be the other half. 
Also, since they are larger than a real teacup, or a teacup poodle or a teacup yorkie, I am certain that they had to be at least crossed with a miniature poodle, other wise they would have been smaller.



All of that aside, they are now happy, well-adjusted, kennel-trained pups, they have clearly put on a little weight, & even grown a little ( & we've only had them 3 weeks!), they DON'T have parvo, ( hallelujah!, I was SO worried about that!), & though they have added to the complexity of our lives, they have also added to our hearts, & we are so happy with them!!
So, yes, I said yes... to THREE ( & at the same time we are raising our new set of layers, too!), but in the end, I AM glad.  ;-D