Goodbye little Pio

We lost our sweet little chihuahua, Potrillo, today.  He was overcome by his respiratory problems through the night, so I took him to this this afternoon.  But the doctor said he would probably not recover.  Poor guy could barely breath.  He was suffering very much.   So I made the decision to euthanize.  I knew this day was coming.  It was really a sad moment.  I watched as they injected some sleeping medicine into his paw, and he slowly closed his big bug-eyes and went to forever sleep.   

Potrillo came into our lives around 2014 as he continually escaped from his owner across the street.  A Mexican woman and her husband operated a little taqueria across the street, and have 2 or 3 little dogs.  Potrillo (which means ‘little pony’ in Spanish) would often escape and go exploring.  He visited several neighbors, and one day came to explore our yard.  He could squeeze through the fence and make his way into the house via the doggy door.   Several times (at least 4 times that I remember) we’d come home and there would be an extra dog sitting on the couch just chillin’!  LOL.  We would sometimes change his name to “Pio” for our English-speaking friends because most of them didn’t understand “Potrillo”.   That was okay because Pio is also a spanish-language term used in children’s rhymes for the sound that a baby chicken makes.  Like we say, “Peep, peep, peep” for a chick, spanish-speaking people say, “Pio, pio, pio”.   Then, of course, Holly added the moniker, “Bug eyed rat dog” which Ivy and our neighbors thought was hilarious.  I don’t think she meant for that to be funny, but it was.  So we frequently called him Bug Eyed Rat Dog.  

Finally, in 2015, the woman with the Taqueria decided to move to another location.  On the day she left, her husband came over and said, “This chihuahua seems to want to live with you more than us.  Do you want him?”  

I said yes, of course.  

Even better, Potrillo got along really well with my other dog Rusty.   That was remarkable because Rusty didn’t like any other dogs or people very much.   Only me.  I was his one person.  But he immediately began playing with Potrillo and sharing food and even sleeping next to him sometimes.  I think Rusty thought this was his child!  He was like, “I don’t know how this happened, but I have a son now.”