What a sweet face Taz has! It almost seems that he is smiling!
Taz, who is almost 11, is a member of the Boston Chihuahua meetup group.
As his mom wrote us, he was a breeder dog at a Missouri puppy mill. At age 7 they “retire” the dogs. This one breeder was humane enough to give her unwanted dogs to a small little rescue out of a lady’s house.
Her name is Charlene “Charly” McCarthy and her shelter was called Second Chance Chihuahua Rescue.
Charly put Taz on Petfinder.com which is how his mom found him!
She says, “She was convinced to adopt him out to me, despite the fact that we lived in Miami and he would have to fly on a plane. It has now been 4 years and for the past 2, we have been living in my home state of Massachusetts, where Taz really likes it since it is not as hot as Miami! And he is furry!!”

Taz has helped spread the word of animal rescue by helping his mom volunteer at the Manchester Animal Shelter (NH), where she now on the Board of Directors, and by participating in their many events.

Taz says, “Adopt a shelter dog!!!”, and we, as volonteers at the Animal Rescue League of Boston, are with him!

Tonite, 25 pre-selected, canine contestants strut their stuff down the red carpet at 6:30 PM at the MSPCA on Nantucket, MA, for the Put Your Best Paw Forward, the 2nd Annual Canine Couture Fashion Show.

Events details:
Open bar, including appetizers, music, auctions and more.
Tickets are $150 and on sale by calling 508-825-2287.
For front row seats and other luxuries, ask about VIP tables. All proceeds benefit Nantucket’s homeless animals. Last year they collected $30,000!

As Turbo’s friend, Mingo, reffered us, the online article in the NYTimes, “Think Your Dog Is Smart? Its Collar May Be Even Smarter”, is going to expire. So, here is the pic of Turbo that has been published there!

And here is what the article says about the tag that Turbo is wearing:

“(…) For dogs that are at home alone while their owners are at work, a start-up company, SNIF Labs of Boston, is developing a lightweight tag that logs, among other details, how much exercise the animal is getting. Small enough even for Chihuahuas, the tags are in preliminary testing and are scheduled for limited release in November at a price of $199.95.

The tags contain computer chips to detect a dog’s motion inside and outside the house. “When the dog is out,” said Noah Paessel, chief executive, “the computer on the tag is running and collecting information on walking and trotting, and storing it in memory on the dog’s tag.”

When the dog returns home, the data stored on its collar are beamed by radio to a nearby receiver connected to a home computer and then to the company Web site for analysis and display.

The tags can also be used for networking. (The company’s name, by the way, stands for Social Networking in Fur.) If dogs wearing the tags meet, the chips on their collars exchange identifying signals, Mr. Paessel said, and a record of the meeting can be kept on the server. If they wish, the owners can then contact one another, too. (…)”

Laureen sent us the pics of her two babies, Bubs and Maddie.
Her husband does dog training on the side, just because he loves dogs. He even learned how to handle aggresive ones because he hates to see dogs put down. Isn’t that amazing?

Bubby, the smaller one, was left behind in an apartment building up the street from Laureen’s place with no food and water for three days! They heard his story and decided to take him into their home. He was about 1, very scared, skinny and shy. He was 15lbs, today he is 4-year-old and is 35lbs…!

Maddie, the bigger one, was adopted on May 1st, which is national Adopt A Dog Day, from the Worcester ARL. She was a puppy who was there with her sister. Her sister had also been adopted that day. They were rescued from a kill shelter days before they would have been put to sleep. Maddie has been with us since she was 5 months old!

Turbo,our adorable office mascot, was featured in the New York Times today!

His picture with the SNIF Tag appears in the article “Think Your Dog Is Smart? Its Collar May Be Even Smarter”. You can read it here.

This beautiful girl is Sashi, a 6.1 pounds Chihuahua with beautiful brown fur. Liz adopted her in the winter of almost 2 years ago from a MSPCA Adoption Center.

What she did for Sashi is an example for everybody: as you can see in the pic below, Sashi was pathetic - a little underweight, bald and terrified.

She was curled up on a pillow, and she wouldn’t eat unless you fed her by hand. It turned out that she had sarcoptic mange and food allergies - she had scratched herself nearly furless. “Poor thing. Sweet as pie though!”, Liz told us.

After Liz adopted Sashi, the little girl really needed to bond and feel safe, and for six months slept under Liz’s shirt as often as she could.

Now she is fabulous, healthy and happy. She’s really smart, of course, great manners and a total sweetheart!

We met Ducky, this small Chihuahua, at one of the last Boston Chihuahua meetups.
His mom Lisa, pictured below, came to the meetup with other three Chihuahuas - but in fact she owns eight Chihuahuas! Not only, she owns other eight dogs, too.

These are two pics from her meetup profile: her house seems Wonderland!!!

Tine, one of the Sniffy Girls, is a veterinarian and said that this tiny baby is probably hydrocephalus (water-on-the-brain), a sort of disease that is relatevely frequent in Chihuahuas. In general, this breed has more health problems than larger breeds, and these problems are specially related to the skull, nervous system, respiratory system, and joints.

Chihuahuas have a “soft skull”, as newborn babies. Their skulls have an opening - it is a trademark of the breed. A too large hole is sign of hydrocephalus, a condition wherein excess fluid collects on brain and results in a swelled head.
Other signs include crossed eyes, grogginess, loss of balance, and seizures.

Anyway, this little guy (that in fact is an adult dog) was gorgeous, elegant and very sweet - and he got the attention of everyone in the room!