From the old Cairn list, posted in January 2000 (2 of 3 posts on Impossible Placements.)
Cairn? Chihuahua?
Sammie, a pet store project, came to us through a divorce situation. I had been told that they had papers and he was a smallish dog. Well, Sammie looked like a Chihuahua with some abnormal hair growth. He was Cairn in attitude and in some parts of his coat. There seemed to be patches of hair that were hard, but only patches. At one year, he weighed in at 8#, not a cairn of notable size. He was lacking almost all aspects of Cairn furnishing. The papers?, they seemed to get lost in the divorce. Oh, yes, he had this odor about him. He was not were near as bad as MacDuff, but you would soon know he came in the room if you opted to pet him. The vet called it “Rancid dog”, due to a low level infection, which may have been part of the hair and skin problem. Attitude? This imp felt that he owned every other dog in sight, especially if they were large black dogs. Walks in the park were a series of alpha rolls, which he summarily ignored until the offensive dogs were out of sight, with Sue moving out of sight so she wouldn’t have to explain to people why I was on my knees growling in the face a tiny dog. He simply would not shut up. We would look at him and wonder. “Who will ever take this creature?” At home, he was a piece of cake, at least for the alpha boss, who tossed him regularly, and still he came back for seconds and thirds, regularly.
Once, when Sue took him back to the vet, the vet’s partner was on duty. This is a semiretired vet who worked with the Knowland Park Zoo for years, with every possible kind of animal. He picked Sammie up, put his stomach right to his nose, inhaled very deeply, repeated this several time. Then he reviewed the blood work and test results. He said the thyroid levels were in range, on the low side, but he had a suspicion. He ordered thyroid pills, and gave them to Sue with a wink. Over time, as I got information from listers, I took him off all beef, added cottage cheese to his diet and let nature take it’s course. All of that seemed to work for him. He was sort of OK but still no takers for our small problem. “No one is going to take this dog.”
We had a prior inquiry from a young lady who did not want the larger cairn we were trying to place but later called back about small guys. She had been raised around Toy poodles and a larger Cairn seem out of her league. Then she saw Sammie and it was love at first sight. She works for my dentist and I get reports about him.
A Christmas elf came to visit - 2002
When I opened the door, I was shocked. I knew her but not the cute little guy in her arms. He looked just like a typical Cairn puppy, with facial furnishing coming in, and all of his toes were now fully covered, and a nice hard coat showing. Sammie had come a long way and found a great home, by the way, he still had the attitude about other dogs, but he is truly a Cairn.