Our new family member - Tius ( Tee-us)

Our beloved dog, Zeus passed away about a year and a half ago. C hurt badly for a very long time after Zeus died, and wanted another dog. As we already knew we would eventually move to Mexico, we told him we would get another dog when we got a home in Mexico.

Well, when we had been here exactly a week, we got word that a friend of a friend of a friend knew a guy in Xalapa who had a 6 month old boxer pup that he couldn't keep anymore. This whole "friend of a friend" thing - is the primary form of marketing and communication here in Mexico. Word spreads faster than the spead of light- that's another story. Anyway, off we went to Xalapa which happens to be the state capital.

I had been to Xalapa before when I was here on our first research trip in 2006. It is a beautiful drive as Xalapa is straight up into the mountains - only a 40 minute drive on a modern 4 lane freeway. The temperature and humidity drop as well making it a very comfortable temperature. We actually turned off the AC in the truck and rolled down the windows all day.

So off we go on this crazy wild goose chase in search for the owner of this puppy. Why a goose chase? Here's a lesson on the social structure in Mexico. Bill's assistant put out the word that we were looking for a boxer puppy. A school mate of his went to University in Xalapa and knew of someone in his neighborhood who had a puppy. Unfortunately, this person doesn't have a phone ( or it is currently disconnected), so they called another neighbor and asked them to tell the puppy's owner that we would be coming to Xalapa tomorrow to see it.

So we head up to Xalapa with Bill's assistant, Eric; his school mate; Manuel, and our whole family in a pick-up truck -king cab of course. The fun part is that we were told it is all arranged. Uh hah - arranged Mexico style. Anyway, we arrive at this school mate's place and walk to a nearby store that is a very small pet store where the puppy was supposed to be. They were surprised we were coming. The message never got to the intended party. Somehow (I never quite figured this connection out) the pet store people and the person with the dog were connected - don't think married - but anyway. She started trying to find this guy who just happened to go work in the next city of Puebla who knows where and won't be back until 7pm. It's like 10am.

Now I'm thinking that this might not happen. C and G are so anxious and excited. Bill tells them we will give them some time to try to find him, but that we won't wait around all day until 7pm - we have better things to do. Besides, this is one puppy, not even a litter. He might be the dumbest and most hyper one of the litter. No thanks.

In the meantime, we hear about another friend who knows someone who has a litter of puppies. Off we go in search of the friend. We wander all over Xalapa and find the friend's place. They they drive and we follow them to the someone who supposedly has puppies. Yah, actually..... no puppies. We make a stop at the mall (very nice almost as big as Veracruz city with lots of great shops that I will have to go back to visit another time......) and Costco for hotdogs. We ended up buying a few items at Costco too.

So we decide to go back to Manuel's place one more time to see if the girl at the pet place found the guy with the puppy. (are you confused yet?) Turns out he's on his way back from work and will meet us in an hour. We hang out at Manuel's place (he had spanish cartoon network which kept the kids entertained) for of course more than an hour.

Ok, now OBVIOUSLY Bill really wants a puppy because there is no way we would have wasted this day otherwise. Ugh. Anyway, the guy finally shows up. Bill checks him out, tests his personality, aggression, features, and we try to test his intellegence. Then we decide I get to take him for a little walk away from all the people, excitement and kids to see what I think. Is he smart enough to be well trained? I watched him carefully - how he reacted to me, his eyes, etc. I decided, miracles of miracles that this one dog would do the trick.

Here's our new pooch.
We all loaded back into the truck with the dog at my feet so I could keep him out of trouble. We decided we would change his name as he didn't respond readily to the name they were using, and we really didn't like it - "Pinky". Yeah, I didn't get it either. So C finally picked Tius. Ok, what's with the weird name? Hmmm..... another whole story. Here's the really short version. We have a friend with that name as his last name. Bill and I both really like that name but it never seemed right for our kids. So, I guess it was meant for the dog.

Here's the best part. C has been absolutely amazing with the dog. We told him this was his dog. G hadn't earned that right because he hasn't learned the proper treatment of animals yet. So this is C's dog. C normally is not a go-getter. Getting C to do chores causes me infinitely more work and stress than to do it myself. He procrastinates, daydreams and forgests. The dog is a completely different matter. He had blown me away with the commitment C has toward his dog. I am actually writing this a full 2 weeks after we got the dog and I haven't heard him complain about taking care of his dog.

Most Mexican dogs live outside - they are also filthy. We didn't want that. So Tius has had to be house trained. C has cleaned up every mess - totally - without complaint - during this learning process. He takes Tius out several times a day, feeds him and most importantly plays with him to keep them both busy.

C is a pretty happy child. However, I can't say I have ever seen C laugh so much as I have seen him laugh in the last 2 weeks. Like I mean ROFL all day long. There is so much joy and laughter coming out of that child it's often actually annoying. He is singing constantly when he's not laughing. The death of our first dog was really hard on him, but I don't think I realized just how sad and heavy it has been for him until now. Tius has lifted that cloud that I don't think any of us really knew was there until now. I am truly happy and proud of him at the same time. He is doing such a great job taking care of his dog and is so happy to have his very own dog.

G is helping too, and a little miffed about not having his own dog. It's a good lesson for him. The only family members who are slower to adjust are the cats. They are not impressed. They are much to old to have to train a new puppy where his place is in this family. So they make themselves scarse and when the dog discovers their hiding place, a lot of hissing is involved. Over the past 2 weeks that has settled down somewhat. Tius is still a pup and wants to play with the cats who of course want nothing to do with it. So we still get some hissing and a couple swipes here and there. But they will at least allow him to get within 12 inches before they start growling.

Tius has decided that C's suitcase/dresser (for now, we are using their suitcases as dressers until we find what we want) is the perfect bed for him. Somehow it doesn't look comfortable, but it's his favorite place to go. I had to put a stop to it because all of C's clothes were full of hair. Ugh.