SHEILA JO

Charlie and I were devastated and we felt lost after Chelsi passed away on 9/15/08. It was about a month before she would have been 16. We got her when she was 6 weeks old, so she had been constantly with us all of those years.

We had regular places where we took her for walks. There were so many memories. So many places we didn’t want to go again because she had always been with us and it just wouldn’t be the same without her.

Later that year, on the day after Thanksgiving, we decided to take the RV and go to the desert, to a place where we had gone many times before. Only we had always taken Chelsi with us. This time, without her, we did our walk, silently, both of us in our own thoughts, talking occasionally, pointing out “Remember when we were here that time and saw the coyote”, etc. But, there was a sadness. We missed our girl.

We didn’t do any more outings for the year because it hurt too much. It was easier to stay at home and not be reminded of those happier times with her.

Then in January I had a strong urge for another dog. I was at my computer and went online to see the dogs at the South San Diego County Animal Shelter. They show pictures of dogs available for adoption. I looked through several and came across a very shy-looking black dog that was discribed as an “Australian Cattle Dog”. I couldn’t get her face out of my mind.

Later that morning I was doing laundry and decided I would bring up the subject of getting another dog, to Charlie. When I started talking to him, I broke down and cried because it was a combination of missing Chelsi and hoping to fill the loneliness I had without her.

I showed him the picture of the dog I found online and he agreed that we should go and see her. We got ready to go.

The only problem was, we went to the wrong shelter to look for her. We went to the City shelter instead of the County, and walked through the dog kennels looking for the kennel number we had from the website. While looking, we saw lots of adorable dogs. One was a Chihuahua mix who was begging with her eyes “Please take me, take me!” We were very distracted now.

We asked one of the workers there about the kennel number. She said it was a South County Shelter number. We drove over to that shelter to look for our dog. When we asked for her there, we discovered that she was in isolation because she was on antibiotics for an upper respirator infection. But, they said they could bring her out for us to meet. We wouldn’t be able to spend any time with her though.

While we were waiting to see her, three Australian Shepherd puppies were brought out to meet their potential owners. We sat and watched as the three people held their puppies. Finally, “Sheba” was brought out. She was very shy, but sweet. We petted her and she didn’t seem to be nervous in a way that made us not trust her. The lady told us that we could come back on Tuesday, the 20th, when she was off of antibiotics and back in her kennel and then we could interact with her more.

The next day, Saturday, we went back to the City shelter and adopted the little Chihuahua. I have no idea why, because I have never been a Chihuahua person, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that little face and the “Please take me, take me!” look she had. I know......

"Jaylei"

We named her “Jaylei”. She was 5 months old and not spayed. She would be sent to one of the vets who the shelter used for spaying and we would pick her up from there the following Friday.

Well, we were supposed to go back to the South County shelter to see the Australian Cattle Dog on Tuesday. Charlie was kind of hoping that we wouldn’t go since we already adopted “Jaylei”. My walking buddy, Mo, told me “If you don’t want two dogs, don’t go!” Good advice, but I had to go back and see the Cattle Dog. So, on Tuesday, we went back to see her.

We spent some time with her in an area they had for interaction. She seemed nervous, but I think most of the nervousness was from the person who was in there with us. He tried to talk us out of adopting her. “She won’t come to you, her eyes are always darting around, etc. She’s too scared, etc.” We watched her and we didn’t see anything scary about her.

We went outside to talk about it. Charlie was holding his breath I know. He said “What do you think?” I said, “I want her.” There was a big sigh. He was concerned about having two dogs and I know he had been afraid this would happen. We already had committed to “Jaylei”. I told him that we would work it out.

This dog called “Sheba” needed us. She would be put down soon. She’d been brought in about a month ago, on Christmas Eve. Charlie agreed. We went back in and filled out the paperwork and paid the fees for her. She was about two years old, but had not been spayed. We had to wait until that was done, so we’d pick her up at our vet on Thursday.

We went back out to the kennel to see her before we left. The girl was getting ready to walk her. She was very happy that “Mama” was getting adopted. Then we found out that “Sheba” had been brought in with 3 puppies. Those were the puppies we had seen the other day when we were waiting to see her. We were also told that this dog was so shy when she was brought in, some people wanted to put her down right away because she might not be adopted. If not for the puppies, they might have done that. Then she got sick and they medicated her.

While we were driving home, I mistakenly called her “Sheila” instead of “Sheba”. We decided that that would be her name.

"Sheila" and Dad
July 2009

The rest is history. We picked “Sheila” up from the vet on Thursday and we picked “Jaylei” up on Friday. In about 3 weeks we found a good home for “Jaylei”. It was with a family who had two dogs and two kids and the wife had always wanted a Chihuahua. The man came in. She went to him and he said “I want her.” She walked out with him and didn’t look back.
Sheila has come a long way. She is starting to be more confident, but it’s been an uphill climb. We don’t know what happened to her before and all we can do is show her that we love her and discipline her when she needs it. We were happy to see that she gets along well with the cats and they have never objected to her being here.

More later...........