Our Second Doxie-Poo

After owning Sadie for a couple of years, we realized two things: we loved doxie-poos, discovering this NEW breed was a wondrous surprise, and we HAD to have another. We really wanted to find another doxie-poo for Sadie to pal around with. She really needed a little friend for all the time we spent away at work.

The searching started in 2002. We thought it would be a simple task, we would just give Deana, the breeder where we found Sadie, a call and tell her we were heading down to look for a 2nd doxie-poo. That would have been easy if Deana hadn't gone missing. We tried everything short of hiring Kojak to locate her. She had vanished. So we started pouring through the classifieds, hawking online sites and phoning breeders all over the country, but no one had any doxie-poos.

People had "heard of" these kinds of dogs back then, but no one had one readily available to adopt. The search went on and on for years. Until 2004, when we spied an online classified ad from a breeder in Kansas who had some doxie-poos available. We were thrilled.

We saw some photos of the litter and chose one. The smallest pup of the litter. We ordered her online, had her shipped on a plane and within weeks, we were the proud owners of our 2nd doxie-poo pup, Moxie.

If someone would have told me back in the 20th Century that I would soon order a doxie-poo online, I would have had many, many questions..

Moxie and Sadie together today...

The Box

As you may recall from my last post, I mentioned the one thing that I dreaded most about acquiring a new dog, and that was the DOG WALKING. The early morning walking (ouch!), the early evening walking and my most feared, the late night walking.

In my extreme laziness, I had imagined a product much like a cat box, a small plastic box filled with sand or whatever, where my highly intelligent new pup would sprightly beeline into in times of need. Maybe I could invent such an item? My heart raced with just the thought. But low and behold, to my dismay, there was already such a product on the market EXACTLY like this, and readily available at my local pet store. Miracles do happen!


Immediately we darted to Petco and made the purchase. A small gray box and a bag of “puppy litter” were all we needed. We brought it home, filled up the box, positioned it nicely in a corner of a room we rarely used, and called Sadie to join us. We put her in the box and said “Go pee. Go on… go pee. Go on, Sadie, you can do it… go pee” She looked at us like we were crazy.

We repeated this over and over and over. For nearly an hour. “Come on... go pee and we’ll get a treat. FINALLY… she peed. And we had a party the size of Texas! Clapping and shouting and congratulating her with a treat. Later that day, we put her back in the box and repeated the process all over again. We had another party. That evening, before bed, another party. This went on for a couple of days and then she started to get it on her own.

We went through a rough few weeks where in her attempts, she missed the box. In some instances, she even missed going in the right room with the box. But after awhile we were home free. As Sadie got bigger, she outgrew the small box and moved into the roomier “medium” sized model.

It’s been years now. No early morning walking, early evening or late night walking is ever needed. We take Sadie out for walks when she wants to go, or when we want to take her, and it works out just perfectly.

Sadie using her box today!!

The Search

Seems like just yesterday when my partner begged me to start looking for a dog. Don't get me wrong, I love dogs, I just wasn't quite ready for the responsibility involved in having a dog. The early morning walking, the early evening walking and the late night walking, specifically. After awhile of hemming and hawing, I came to realize that in the real world of responsibility walking a dog is a tiny grain of salt in a vast open sea. So what were we going to get? Pugs were the first choice. But then we found that we needed a hypo-allergenic situation (like the Obama family) and that involved a poodle in some capacity.






Growing up I had a tiny white poodle named Buttons. He was mean but I had a strange attachment to him. He wasn't snuggly or spritely, just sort of a small watchdog of sorts. For whatever reason, this 5 lb dog made me feel safe so he was ok in my book. Ever since Buttons, I've always had a strange penchant for tiny poodles. The teenier and more poodley, the better. So the search was on for a poodle-something. We saw an ad from a breeder out in Norco that had all kinds of poodle mixes (see above) at extremely reasonable prices.


So we made the trek out through Riverside to her home which was in fact a cross between the set of Hee-Haw and the Munsters. All sorts of barnyard activity going on inside and out. Pigs, snakes, wolves, rats, galore. And then there were the poodles. All shapes and sizes. Even something called a party poodle, two words I would never have thought would sit side by side; a black and white long-haired poodle originally bred in the wild (I think) . Then, Deanna (the breeder) brought over what appeared to be a baby ferret. It was jet black, rail thin and real scary. She put it on Vic's shoulder and it crawled up along her neck and wrapped itself around her. Vic was in love. I was in disbelief. Turns out it wasn't a ferret at all, but an 8 week old doxie-poo, a dachshund-poodle mix and Vic HAD to have her. I was at the other end of the room conversing with a 7 year old boy who had a tooth sprouting from his upper lip. He had introduced me to lovely apricot poodle that I was immersing myself with in hopes of avoiding the discussion I knew was about to ensue regarding the purchase of the ferret, uh, I mean doxie-poo.


Well, luck seemd to be on my side that day (or so it seemed) because the little doxie-poo was too young to be adopted. But in just 4 weeks she would be ready to pack her little doxie bag and be on her way. With that said, we were on our way. Back in the car and on the freeway, Vic going on and on about how she MUST have the dog and that we HAD to make the drive back in 4 weeks.


Within the course of the next 23 days we looked high and low for another poode mix. Upon each outing I prayed that we'd find SOMETHING that Vic could attach herself to other than the ferret. We sat on the floor of countless breeder's homes, pet stores and shelters trying to see if Vic would bond with SOMETHING else. Such was not the case. We we're back in the car headed to Norco.


With another 4 weeks into the aging process, the little thing was actually starting to take shape and resemble that of a real canine (all 1.5 lbs of her). Within minutes Vic was signing the paperwork, writing a check and we were on a beeline to Petco where we purchased the pup every essential she could ever need and more.
By the time we brought her home is was late. We set her up in her little crate with a blanket and a water bottle and started brainstorming for a name for her. Molly? Darla? Sadie? Sadie! Sadie it was.

Sadie and her monkey, below.