So, while we were in Tampa at Lazy Days, I started to look at available breeders in the Tampa/Inverness area. One of them sounded intriguing—they had Yorkies and Yorkie/Maltese mixes on their web site. It looked like a family run operation—not open on Sunday, “a day of worship”. So, we agreed that we’d go check out their operation. We also agreed that we wouldn’t walk away with a dog this time—just check out the breeder and decide later…..yea, right.. We drove to the sticks – outside Dade City
to a ranch style house in the middle of nowhere. We walked into the living room to see 4 Yorkie puppies waiting for us. Within minutes, we were surrounded with wiggling puppies. One of them was absolutely adorable –little Dina. But, we still wanted to see the mixed breeds that she had. So, in came 2 York-tese’s and a Maltese. I said, “No white dogs”…but this shrewd breeder must have known that this particular Maltese was a ringer for us. The York-tese’s went off to play with the other puppies—and the little Maltese, named Angel, came right to us. She was a charmer! While the other dogs raced and played, she stayed to play with us. Within a few hours, we were writing a check –only $1200 --$400 a pound—and walking out with our new puppy. She was a perfect traveler—slept in my arms the entire drive back to Tampa. Since we were not exactly prepared for a puppy – our first stop was Petsmart. With crate, leash, food and toys, we headed off to introduce “Chloe” to her new home. (“Chloe” was named after John’s g-g-g-g grandmother, Daniel Spencer Sr’s wife, Chloe Wilson Spencer).Our first few weeks were quite a transition—after being footloose and fancy free for over 2 years, we were suddenly “with dog”. Feeling like new parents with no idea of how to deal with this tiny creature, we fumbled for awhile…trying to figure out how much to feed her, how often, when to take her out, how to get her house-broken…. There were a lot of sleep-interrupted nights. Thank god we were in Florida, so the 10:00-12:00-2:00-4:00 stops outside weren’t too awful. There were many days that we looked at each other, saying “What have we done?”.
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We left Tampa and took our first road trip to Rock Crusher. We would be settling in for 4 months – well, for about 2 weeks in one spot—then, we had to do an Ocala run to get our jacks fixed – then back to our 4 month spot. Chloe immediately began to charm the entire park. Within days, she had made friends with everyone. We had our first Thanksgiving, our first Christmas and two birthdays. She would alternate between being absolutely wonderful and adorable –and being an absolute “Mal-terrorist”. December was time for puppy shots, first grooming. Our lives were completely turned up-side-down!
(Had a great b-day for Mom—with live Maine lobsters flown in!)
