My name is "Hello Dolly," just call me "Dolly" for short. I am a 3-month-old Maltese and weigh about 3 pounds. When I grow up  I will weigh about 5 to 6 pounds. I was born in Yucca Valley, California, and have two sisters. My breeder did not want us to leave until we were at least 3 months old and when that day came, my one sister got adopted. A day later, unknown to me, I would soon be adopted by Bill and Nancy leaving my other sister behind. Read their story below of how this came about.

As you may have read “Our Tribute To Daisy,” our home had been empty and we were sad at her loss. Bill and I knew that we would get another dog as soon as we felt that the timing was right. A week passed, and we said to ourselves that we would have to look for another Maltese, we had empty beds all over the house, a boat, a motorcycle, bicycles, and a camper that were just waiting for another little traveler to share our life with.

 

Nancy started to look on the Internet, newspaper ads, and recommendations from people in our area. In Yuma, we have very little access to breeders of Maltese. After investigating the Internet, we both felt that if we found a Maltese, we would not want it to be shipped cross-country to us. We felt that in the heat of summer, not being able to see or touch the puppy with all breeders too far for us to drive to would be out of the question. With many long-distance phone calls to private parties, ads revealed that so many of them were "backyard breeders," and we did not want to get involved with this or local pet stores. What this means is, that most don't have the parents on site and they tell us that their aunt or another relative who lives in another state has the parents and sends them the puppies to sell! Upon further investigation, we found that the State of Missouri is noted as a "puppy mill state." The private party ads that had the parents on sight usually sold their puppies right away. This is because the people could see the environment that the puppies were raised in and see that the parents were well taken care of. Our choice was to go to a qualified breeder.

 

Since our range was Arizona and California, we got on the website of The American Maltese Association and called all around for breeders that had puppies available. All the breeders that we talked to were excellent, and very helpful, and referred us to other breeders that they knew would have puppies available. We found several that had 6-week-old puppies that would be available at the end of August and called a breeder in Phoenix to tell her that we would like to drive over in August to get a puppy.

 

Then Monday, July 14th, I just happened to go back to the AMA site and found Marlees Maltese in Yucca Valley, California. I called Martha and she said that she had just sold one female on Sunday, and she had two females left. The timing was perfect, we told her that we would load up the camper and drive up on Tuesday, July 15th to pick up our new puppy.

 

We first drove into Yuma to get a small bed, dog food for our puppy, and toys. That day it broke records for heat reaching over 117 degrees in Yuma. We got back to our house and got the camper ready for the 220-mile trip to Yucca Valley.

 

Tuesday morning we left for Yucca Valley, a 5-hour drive, and arrived at Martha and Lee's house. As we left the valley floor of the Coachella Valley and climbed to 3200' you could feel the cooler air. Instead of 110 degrees, it was only 102, a relief although still in the 100's!

 

We walked into their house, and a little white ball of fluff came running to us. Bill put down her new bed and toy, and she got in it and played with her toy. We saw her parents, Sire, "Champion Glionna's Pistol Pete of Marlee" and Dam, "Marlees Lady in Charge," as well as her other Maltese. We spent several hours talking to Martha, getting all the information about our new puppy's care. She gave us food, a new blanket, shampoo, toothpaste, pee pads, and a toy and we were on our way!

 

Bill started up the truck and had the air conditioner on to cool the front of the cab area, and I took our puppy out to her new bed. We left at 4:30 p.m. and started our 5-hour drive back to Yuma, Arizona. It was another hot and humid day, breaking records in the deserts. As we drove back, she was lying in her bed, sleeping away, so relaxed and calm! We did have to make a gas stop and run the air until we started to pump the gas. I took her in the back of the camper, and she went potty on her pee pad then gave her some food and water. Along the way, she had her water dish up front and knew where to go for a drink. As we continued our long trip back, we had several names picked out for our puppy. As we were driving back, we said to one another a different pet name, and slowly our list shrank down to two names.

 

As we were driving back she was a perfect little girl, sleeping in her new bed; we could not have asked for a more relaxed lovable dog. Our last stop with the camper at 9:00 pm was to give her another potty stop and it was there that we said, let's call her "Dolly." It's funny that this name was not on our list, but somehow at that time it just fit her perfectly!

 

We arrived back home at 9:30 pm, all of us tired from the long drive. We put "Dolly" outside to go potty before bed and she did her thing for the first time in our yard! We had pee pads at several locations throughout the house, and she knew where to go and used them.

 

Even though we felt guilty calling around to find a new puppy with "Daisy" only being gone for a short time, we knew that we could never replace her, because her paw prints left on our hearts will never be forgotten! We are bringing a new addition to our home to begin new memories.

 

 

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