ZitaBella ❤️July 16, 2004-Nov 2020
7.16.23
Today is my second dogs birthday, she would have been 20 years old today! Kitsune my Shiba Inu was my first dog, I want introduce him also on his birthday, which happens to be Christmas Day. So it will be a little while before you see him.
So ZitaBella my beautiful little one! I thought the name was fitting for her, because she was such a beauty, outside and within. She bubbled over with personality, super feisty but also a jokester. Oh and very bossy, from day one coming home with me she ruled over my other dog Kitsune. He didn’t mind, and he would get down on all fours and try to make himself really small to play with her as not to intimidate. She literally walked all over him his entire life, and I’m pretty sure she was the intimidator. I lived in Naples, Florida at the time, and thought it would be cute to give her an Italian name. I even got her a necklace and did glamour shots of her.
As she grew up she became such a good dog, I literally took her everywhere. She came to work with me, (I worked with dogs). She went shotgun in the car everywhere. She got along well with everyone she met and even other peoples dogs. Kitsune was really the only dog she tried to dominate, and once she mounted my aunt’s dog Shadow which was a pretty dominant male Sharpei! He could have eaten her in one bite, but he was kinda of scared of her, which to this day makes shake my head.
I just started introducing her to everything very young so she grew up relaxed and well behaved. She flew on a plane (only once), always went on vacations, long trips in the car back to my home town. She did it all. I felt she really understood me when I spoke to her. She enforced everything I said too, so if I told Kitsune to do something she would also bark at him. 😆. She was never a very playful dog as far as toys were concerned. She had lots of them, but only wanted them if Kitsune tried to play with one. She did enjoy playing with him sometimes, usually at night before bed for a few minutes they would chase each other around the house. She didn’t know as many commands as Kitsune, but it was as if he was just born with knowledge of commands, but I’ll talk about that when it’s his turn.
For a chihuahua being known for being yappy biters, she was not. She never bit me passed her teething stage. She was also very quiet unless provoked. As she aged I envisioned her as Sophia from The Golden Girls, her humor and voice would emerge from my mind. So when I looked at her I imagined what she’d say to me if she could, and it was always Sophia's voice. Pretty hilarious comparison, which I’m easily entertained. I did that a lot with dogs, my aunts Sharpei I imagined as having Joe Pesci’s voice, and her other dog Lisa Kudrow’s 🤣. I’m not even kidding... maybe I have screws loose.
I’m so glad she had gotten to travel so much in her life, I did the best I could to give her everything she could want. All she really wanted in life was my lap, a blanket, my bed, a french fry, and to bark at Kitsune. She lived through all the big moves I’ve made, traveled out west with me in 2019 to see the sites. Her only fear in her entire life was a housefly. She would detect a housefly in the house and be so terrified, yet she would attack it if she could, if she couldn’t reach it she’d leave the room and hide under the bed, or equivalent. I had found her trembling quite hysterically. If would kill a fly I would have to show her and let her smell it, I couldn’t just tell her I killed it. This one time a fly got in the car while going through Arby’s drive thru and had to pull over before she killed us, lol. Get the fly out of the car and continue on. She wouldn’t even eat after that, until we got to our hotel at the Grand Canyon.
She started to deteriorate quite a bit after moving here to New Mexico. She slept a lot more and started to lose teeth, she ended up having some heart complications near the end and had to put her to sleep right before Thanksgiving of 2020. She was 16, so she had a long life that was very full, we had the best years of each other and I can’t imagine life without having had her. To know her was an honor, and I hope that she thought I did an okay job as well. I miss her a lot, always will, but I do smile knowing she had a great life.
With a tear rolling down my face right now, I am going to wrap this up and have a bite of cake, I got for the occasion, looking back fondly on one of my very best friends I ever had the grace of meeting. Just a dog…I don’t think so!
