Sapphire's Story

The interviewer, Darlene Arden, is a dog person--judge, breeder, and author of a book on toy dogs. She located the puppies, all eight to ten weeks old. I uncrated and test-drove each puppy beforehand, taking three or four clicks apiece. I selected the boldest and greediest of the two Chihuahuas, who performed very well, learned (at 8 wks!) a sit and a high-five, and one or two other things. The older affie was FAR too exploratory to eat or socialize, just took off to investigate all of Border Books every time he was set down. Useless for my purposes. The 8 wk female Affie wouldn't come out of the crate, but she was very interested in my bits of chicken. So I shaped her out of the crate, explaining what I was doing, and then across the vast carpet a distance of a meter or so, to my hand, and then to Darlene's hand.