I'd like to introduce the newest addition to our pack, Jillian. She's an 11-week-old Yorkie with the body of a peanut and the courage of a lion.
The story of her coming into our lives is too long to recount in its entirety, so I'll just give you the highlights:
* She's 11 weeks old today, born on Easter Sunday.
* Her dad is parti-colored. Her Mom is standard colored.
* She was whelped by Kimberly King, who is feminvstr on YT.
* She is not from Kimberly's line of champion dogs. Kimberly handled the birth through the adoption for a friend.
* She was named in honor of recently departed Jack. ... Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came, uh, frolicking after.
I wanted Jill from the beginning, but Kelly wanted something more girlie. After months of negotiating, we settled on Jillian. Jillian Bijou, if I correctly overheard Kelly whispering to her tonight.
To me, she's Jill.
* We got her as a pet-quality Yorkie and will have her spayed.
* She's small, just 1 pound, 12 ounces now. I'm hoping for 4, 4 1/2 as an adult.
* Her personality is amazing. We introduced her to Eddie and Rusty tonight, and she didn't have a second's hesitation. She's going to rock their world.
* It's 4:22 a.m., she's sleeping soundly, and I can't stop staring at her.
It was a long search that started with looking at rescues and ended up with me realizing that I wanted a pup. My one regret with Jack was I only had the last three years of his life with him. And my one regret with Eddie is I wasn't around to ensure the first weeks of his life were perfect. And as I've become more involved in training, I decided this once I wanted to see what I can do with a dog that was reared the way they are supposed to be reared and raised the way they are supposed to be raised.
I have no doubt our adventures will take twists and turns that I never imagined, but I can't wait to get started.