This is Mitzi, the long-haired chihuahua that has stolen the heart of my mother. Although Mitzi is skiddish and scraggly, she is compiant enough to sit on my mom’s lap for hours on end and just be petted. This is what my mom has dreamed of for years. We have always had animals in our home, but they usually just never clicked with mom. She would chase our cats around the house, finally snag one and force it to cuddle with her, before it writhed in agony and scratched her eyes out in escape. Poor momma needed some animal lovin’.

When my Oma was ill and living with my family, Mom thought it would be nice for Oma to have a little pet to hold, to make her feel better. So, they found an ad for Mitzi in the newspaper. She was a defective breeding chihuahua, meaning she was unable to carry her pregnanies to term, so the owners were selling her for a very cheap price. My mom jumped at the opportunity and brought the skinny little rat home for Oma. But Mitzi never really bonded with Oma; instead she was attached to mom from day one. Since then, Mitzi has reached princess status in the Olsen abode, and I fear that she will be given a large portion of my inheritance one day.

I was talking to my parents on the phone tonight and asked them what was new. My mom said, “The dogs got shaved.”

I know that Nipper, our other old dog, got periodically shaved, but I was having a hard time picturing Mitzi as a hairless rodent.

My dad interceded, “Well, Mitzi didn’t get shaved. They just trimmed her mullet.”