RIETH — A boy and girl meet, fall in love and have babies. Those are the classic elements to almost every standard love story.
But when the boy and girl in question are dogs — a male Yorkshire terrier and a female Dachshund on a ranch near Rieth — it’s not just a matter of puppy love but it’s a case of Dorkie love.
“Oh, he (Happy) ran over today just to see her,” said Joann Lentelman. “They still go back and forth across the creek all the time.”
Happy, a male Yorkshire, belongs to Lentelman. She got the terrier as a puppy about a year-and-a-half ago after another long-time pet, Buddy, had died. Lentelman said Buddy was her first introduction to small dogs when the Yorkie was dumped off at their ranch.
“Well, with the feedlot and all I was used to a working cattle dog, one that stays by your side all the time but is not really what you would call a lap dog,” she said.
Happy was, well pretty happy, for the first six months. That’s when Emmi arrived on the scene. Lentelman’s niece, 13-year-old Amanda Taylor, got the female Dachshund puppy as a pet about a year ago. Taylor lives at a neighboring house on the ranch.
According to their owners, from the time Happy and Emmi met they clicked. During the following year, the two frolicked among the hay upon the farm through their puppyhoods and into the first year of adult dog life.
“Then just before I went, in April, to Germany, I noticed Emmi looked like she was getting fat,” Lentelman said. “Lo and behold — she had pups.”
Happy, Emmi and one of their babies raced around the floor at Lentelman’s house Tuesday evening. The puppy sported a purple collar sparkling with rhinestones. She had her mother’s dappled spots, but also some long hairs from her father’s coat.
“We don’t know yet if the ears will stand up,” Alisa Smart said.
Her daughter, a cousin of Taylor’s and related to Lentelman, got one of Happy and Emmi’s babies. Smart admitted the family had never heard of a Yorkie/Dachshund combination before the happy event, but said everyone took it in stride.
“I guess we’re just all part of the Dorkie family now,” she said.
The families had listed the puppies for sale in the classifieds, only running the ad one time. Smart said the publication came out in the afternoon and the puppies were sold by that night. For her, getting one of them was a special event as the Smart family’s pet Dachshund, Sugar, had died the month before. For Alisa’s daughter, 12-year-old Karissa, she summed up the puppy’s value in what she named it by combining Happy and Emmi’s names together.
“Now I can say, I have a Hemmi,” she said.
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