A new addition to the Hawkins Family

We have a new addition to our little family and no I am not pregnant. This is our first mother and daughters photo. Isn't it cute? Too bad the new addition isn't actually looking at the camera. Her name is Minnie and she is a miniature pincher (mini-pin - chihuahua plus a doberman pincher mixed). In other words I have a Paris Hilton dog. I know I can't believe it either. Pick up your jaws everyone! It is true! I know I used to hate small dogs but this was totally unexpected. My heart never saw her coming. Here is a full grown picture. She looks bigger in this pic than she is. But here is Minnie Hawkins. She received her name because I have to name all my pets after a Disney character. Plus I called her a mini-me for a while because she is so tiny and she is a Mini Pin so it all seemed to just fit. Minnie is 7lbs right now and the vet has estimated her to be about 2 years old. She was born into our family on Sunday, May 3rd in the afternoon. We found her on our front lawn but she didn't come alone....

Minnie arrived with Dori or so we called her temporarily. Dori was a Black Lab puppy about 4 months old. Nala was let out to go the bathroom and she started barking. I went outside and saw these two peering their little heads out of the side of a bush. Aren't they both adorable. Jeff took them inside and bathed them both. They smelled awful and he fed them. We couldn't let them stay outside in the rain.

Dori and Minnie stayed the night with us and we found a home the next day for Dori. She was too big to stay with us for long and the Humane Society couldn't take either of them as they were full. This is Nala being introduced to them on a completely friendly and bark-free environment.

Aww!!!! How could you not instantly fall in love. Look at Dori's face!!!!!!!

Nala became instantly jealous of Minnie however and I worried about that. We weren't sure we were going to keep her yet but I told Jeff she was on a trial basis depending on how Nala would react to her. Well she seemed to be okay with Jeff around but if I went anywhere near Minnie, Nala would jump over to me. One night Nala went to her bed and I was petting her good night when Minnie came over and when one of her feet hit the bed I heard Nala let out a low growl! Whoa! Minnie get away from the bed (not neutral territory).

The first family photo! Of course there are 5 of us in here. We had to put one up for adoption but she was still a family member for a day.

There last night as sisters. They wanted to spend all their time together.

As you can see below, Nala has let Minnie grow on her. they sleep together now. This morning I found Minnie not sleeping in her own bed but in Nala's right next to her although she was under the blanket. Ahh, Nala is going to share.

Warning! This next part is disturbing. So don't continue reading if you're weak in the stomach.

Tuesday night I found a leakage from Minnie's bum. Yep, a nice little white worm! And another 3 minutes later, another worm... about 5 minutes later, yet another! This lasted through most of the night so I went to check her bed blanket and a whole bunch of dead ones were there crusted into the blanket. GROSS!!! Yeah basically. So Jeff and I grabbed some Q-tips and kept checking for them to just crawl out.

So I called the vet the next morning and we took her in. They told me she was underweight and a little thin. Not too much but by a pound or so which on a little dog is a lot since she is a toy dog. Then they came in after her fecal test and confirmed she had tapeworms from fleas. (We have been giving her flea baths every 4 days now) and she also has whip worms.

As if that wasn't enough they came back in from the blood test to tell me that my little one was going to die!!! Yes you heard right. She has heart worms which is basically like telling me she has cancer. The heart worms are damaging her heart every day. And its fatal if we don't kill them. They felt so bad knowing that this little one was found by us only a few days ago and they gave us the worst news ever! They then told us that we can treat it and kill the worms but its very expensive ($750 -$800). Its a 3 month process and she is confined to a bed for 2 months. No play time or anything. Once the treatment starts she will be very sore and if she even walks too much it can cause an embolism (blood clot) from the worm breaking off and she could die from that.

I was heartbroken. She is so young and has taken over my heart already. I let Jeff make the decision and he said we should save her life!! So we are going to!

Pray for my little one!