Meet Toby.

This is Toby. Toby belongs to a friend of my sister. Toby came to stay for winter break and has not yet gone home. It's been a month.

We were a last minute decision. We got Toby the night before the family left, in december. If we had not agreed to take the dog, Toby would have spent this month alone in the garage, being checked on every few days by a family friend. I’m not trying to make them sound like bad people, but I feel very bad that had I said no to toby he would be alone in a garage. He is a sweet little dog. The key word here is little. Toby would have froze if he had been left in the garage in the winter (I have no proof, but I think this has been the coldest winter we’ve had in a while.) When toby came, he brought two leashes and a bag of dog food which he would not eat. (we suspect he is fed table scraps. he won't touch dog food.)

I would like to say here, that normally I am not a small dog person. Toby however has grown on me. Little dogs in general annoy me, they have obnoxious barks, they always want to be on your lap. Other chihuahuas I have met shake all the time, they are mean little dogs, and I have never been a fan of small dogs, give me a big dog any day.

Toby however is a cool little chihuahua. This could be due to the fact that his owners treat him like a big dog, he lives in the garage on a leash when he is home. He has a very amiable disposition. He does not shake for any reason and he genuinely likes people. He gets so very excited when we come home, and especially likes when we bring new people home to meet him.

Toby has grown especially fond of our little black kitten who we have affectionately and very originally named Little Black. (This is because my sisters and I debated back and forth over her name, she has had quite a few and we called her Little Black in the mean time and it just stuck. I am still trying to find a name that fits but I fear that she will forever be Little Black.)

Toby and Little Black play for most of the day and usually end up falling asleep near each other. In this photo, Toby and Little Black Kitten have fallen asleep in front of the heater. I fear that both will feel a void when Toby's family finally does come to take him home, If they ever do.

When I agreed to take the dog, I heard that it would be Winter break and the week before. Three weeks. That seemed a long time, but okay. Later I heard the week after the New Year. The family vacation kept getting extended. It is now the 12th of January (Toby has officially been with us one month and two days) and my sisters Friend (the dogs owner) is finally back at school. When my sister asked her when she would be picking up her dog, the girl, A replied, "WHY?" later in the day, A said that she first wanted to get unpacked and settled at home before the dog came home.

If I had been gone for a month, seeing my dog would have been a priority. I would have been dying to see him. This is apparently not the case for Toby's family. I really feel apprehension in sending  him home. Not only because we have grown an attachment to him, but because he has to go home to a cold garage, and he has to go home to a family that is obviously less than enthusiastic about his coming home.

I want to be clear, it is not for my benefit that I am nervous about his return home, I don't need another dog, another responsibility. I really feel sorry for this dog. I can of course not control how his family treats him, but I feel like I am doing him a disservice by sending him home. I will have to come to terms with it.

In the mean time, my sister is mentioning to A that if she doesn't really want the dog back, which is how her blasé attitude makes it seem, we would be more than happy to keep him. I will keep you posted on Toby. Last year we lost three dogs, this year we may start out by getting a new one.