The Curious Case of the Standard Chihuahua: Spilling over tea/coffee February 2018

~ Chocolaterunsjudy

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Somehow it seems as though mostly what I’m sharing is senior moments (not really — but it feels that way!). And a long discourse on chihuahuas that I totally understand if you skip it.

Confessions of a Mother Runner

Pull up chair and mug with Coco and Deborah and me for the ultimate coffee tea date.

If we were enjoying high tea . . .
I’d tell you I came downstairs with the purpose of reading and commenting on some blogs and to start this post, with a few ideas of what I wanted to say in mind.

Except then I sat down to write and had no clue whatsoever what I meant to write about . . . I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person that happens to — right? Right???


If we were enjoying high tea . . .
I’d tell you oh yea, this is what I meant to tell you: I had Lola at the vet (normal appointment) and there was a new assistant? vet? shadowing. She seemed extremely knowledgeable. She asked a lot of penetrating questions. She was able to guess Lola’s age exactly — most people see a chihuahua and think “puuuuuuuppy”, no matter how old they are.

Turns out this woman has had many chihuahuas.

She lost me when she claimed that Lola was a standard chi. Say what? I like to research things. And I definitely researched chis before we decided to get a dog — I really wanted a Papillon, but they’re not easy to find in rescues, and a long haired chi is just a Papillon by another name, right? We are often asked if she’s a Papillon.

So anyway, there are long haired and short haired chihuahuas. End of story. Teacup, while “cute”, is not really a breed — it’s the runt of the litter, and they often have quite a few health problems. And oh yeah, the breed standard is 4-6 lbs. Lola ranges from 9-11 lbs.

Seriously, keeping weight on that dog has always been a struggle, and she has a fantastic appetite. But this woman insisted there were teacup chihuahuas and standard chihuahuas, and that Lola was obviously a standard chihuahua and a purebred (which she supposedly was, but no, chis aren’t that big and they don’t have the really long back Lola has, which is why she has back problems).

Both Mr. Judy and I poked around on the Internet after that and neither one of us could find any evidence to support this woman’s claims. Very odd. Maybe I shoud have put this last because I can feel your eyes glazing over now that I’ve gone on & on.

Oh well, it’s what I’d tell you if we were enjoying a cup of tea!

Now my news device; cut the cord on tv news


If we were enjoying high tea . . .
I’d tell you that I downloaded the NPR app. Which is pretty funny, because I never listen to NPR. For years I’ve taped the Today Show & watched it when I had the time, but the truth is I get sucked into it and it’s really a talk show. For almost 3 hours.

Granted, like all my shows, I fast forward through the commercials, and like the Olympics, I fast forward through stuff I don’t like. I can get through those 4 hours in less than 2. For now, though, I’m going cold turkey.

I think I’ll continue to tape it because when I do end up on the treadmill, that’s what I like to watch.

If we were enjoying high tea . . .
I’d tell you that 2 massages in one month was heavenly. And I have one last one to use up within the next 3 weeks — I bought a package of 6 last year, but was too busy to use it for a while.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many massages so close together.

Told ya Winter ain’t over!

.If we were enjoying high tea . . .
I’d tell you that I totally get the winter bashing, and this winter weather has definitely been crazy, but here’s the thing: it definitely wasn’t our worst winter (YWMV = your winter may vary). In fact, I lost track of the amount of times the snow melted away (but always seemed to come back). Which is much better than having snow on the ground continuously from December to April.

If you’ve never lived in an area where it snows, that snow on the ground acts like an AC unit — pumping out coldness. It makes it feel much colder than it actually is.

Would I rather be in TX for the winter? You betcha. But it won’t go down as the worst winter ever — at least, if March behaves itself (ahem, March, you’re starting off on the wrong foot or coming in like a lion, pick your metaphor). And I just saw leaves budding on a tree on my dogwalk Thursday. It may not be right around the corner from us, but it is coming.

Tea? Iced Tea? Coffee? Decaf? Green smoothie?

What news apps do you like?

Are those senior moments multiplying?

Do your trees already have leaves?

frifive2

Today I am also  joining up with the  Friday Five 2.0  from Fairytales & Fitness and Rachel @ Running on Happy.

32 thoughts on “The Curious Case of the Standard Chihuahua: Spilling over tea/coffee February 2018”

  1. Senior moment you ask? How about getting halfway to work and realizing that you never put your contacts in and you do not have your glasses…. duh. Yes I had o drive home.

    I give up about the weather. May have to skip another long run – 12 does not happen on the tm.

    I watch the Today show but not 3 hours – only 30 minutes.That’s enough TV for me for the day!!!

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    1. Oh, I rarely watched the whole Today show. But usually more than 30 minutes (but you can get all your news in those first 30 minutes).

      You must see a LOT better than me, because no matter how tired I am, it would be very clear the minute I drove down the driveway that I wasn’t wearing contacts/glasses. I’m very nearsighted — can’t even watch tv unless I’m wearing contacts/glasses.

      Maybe UAlbany will be clear enough by Sunday. It is supposed to get warm, but that’s a whole lotta snow to melt, too.

      Luckily I don’t need to run 12 miles. I may even venture out one day on the weekend. We’ll see.

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      1. I plan to run on Saturday. I have appts and things to get done so I will be out anyway.

        Looks like a pretty cold week (evening temps in the 20s) so that snow will be hanging around.

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  2. I do that all the time where I forget what I wanted to write about the minute I sit down in front of the computer 🙂 Two massages in a month sounds great! That reminded me that I still have money left on a massage gift card from Christmas, I better use that.

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  4. I’ll join you with my peppermint tea. As much as i complain about winters, the summer last year in Colorado was so much better than in Dallas. The weather was still awesome in late May, and we got fall in September, the way it should be.

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    1. Which is part of why we decided we don’t want to retire to TX after all.

      Summers here are usually pretty good, but then, what would we complain about if not the weather? And right now there’s plenty to complain about in that department!

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  6. Seriously, I thought Lola was a Papilon as well! Regardless of whether she is standard, teacup, pure-bred or mixed breed …she’s a cutie and obviously well loved!!

    Senior moments? All the time! I’m having to resort to making lists of lists these days!!

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    1. Long haired chis are usually smaller than Papillons, but there is definitely much similarity between the two — and we do get asked that all the time.

      Definitely lists. Don’t you hate it when you forget the list, though?

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  7. I am always jotting down my blog ideas on post-it notes while I”m at work…seriously, don’t the best come to you when you can’t actually write/publish them? The problem, is rememebring to keep all those post-its organized according to topic LOL

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    1. My understanding is that the DNA tests aren’t terribly reliable, and it doesn’t really matter to us so why spend the $$ on it?

      As one of our pet sitters said, they’re both wonder dogs. As in “I wonder what breed of dog that is”. Lola is obviously a chihuahua, but she isn’t a purebred (despite the claim that she was). Chis just aren’t supposed to be that large. But we like her size — not so tiny that you have to worry about stepping on her & breaking her!

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  9. LOL @ YWMV! It was (is) indeed a strange winter. We’ve had hardly any snow in the DC area. We did just have a freaky wind event the last day or so. The wind was clocked at 71 mph at Dulles airport!

    I didn’t even know NPR had an app. I’ll have to check that out.

    I found the Chi discourse very interesting 🙂

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    1. Well, I know some people don’t mind dogtalk but for other people I know it bores the heck out of them. 🙂

      This was our first big snow, but we’ve had 3 inches here, 6 inches there, 8 inches there, and so on. I’m just thankful we also had a lot of thaws (although it does contribute to flooding).

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  11. Leaves on trees? Nope. But we don’t have snow on the ground either. I seem to remember the snow sticking around the entire winter when I was a kid. It rarely does that anymore. It felt weird to have incredibly lovely weather while all of you on the East Coast suffered through that bomb cyclone.

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    1. Well, we had some leaf buds but now we most definitely have lots of snow on the ground.

      We have had winters (I’ve lived back in the NE for the last 10 years) where the snow has been on the ground all winter We actually got a fair amount of snow this winter, but I enjoyed our breaks when it all melted.

      We had some really nice weather . . . right up until the Noreaster blew in. Such is life.

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  13. The thing about spring is that it always does end up coming along, doesn’t it? Maybe not when we want it, but it will be around and soon everyone will be complaining about the summer heat. 😀 I rarely watch the news – even though we have like a thousand TVs around our office. I’ll occasionally get sucked into a story, though. Maybe I should check out the NPR app so I’m a little more informed about what’s going on in the world.

    That’s crazy about your vet visit! I didn’t glaze over once! I like stories like that. Baffling. LOL. Did you contradict the vet at all or just keep it to yourselves until you could research more at home?

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    1. Sometimes in these parts we skip right over spring & go right into summer. Or have mud season (where it’s just muddy everywhere because of all the melting snow).

      So the person at the vet who said that was shadowing. I think she was an assistant. And even though in general she seemed really knowledgeable, frankly, she wasn’t about that.

      I had never heard of a standard chihuahua and I haven’t been able to unearth any info about it — I truly think she’s just wrong. Which is totally weird.

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  14. Ha, for me, it’s usually I have so much in my brain that I have no clue where to begin! LOL!
    Your chihuahua is SO adorable! Sounds like that new assistant is both knowledgeable and funky at the same time. 🙂
    I keep seeing runners talking about massages! I sooo want one now!

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    1. ” Sounds like that new assistant is both knowledgeable and funky at the same time. ” — Yes!

      You should definitely at least try a massage. I loved them long before I started to run!

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  15. NPR is my news outlet… I get grounded on what happened over night on my morning commute and then find out what happened during the day on my evening commute. We’ve had an interesting winter here too! 2 snow events and one that included ice… the whole city was pretty much shut down for 2 days (nothing like you get up north, but we aren’t equiped for that here, as you know).

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