I'm sure it did belong to someone at some stage, but from there it ended up in the hands of the SPCA and that's where it caught the eye of one of my daughters.
It was a cute wee dog. It had long blonde fur and bulgy brown eyes.
At that stage it wasn't up for adoption as it had to go through the thorough health check and desexing that the SPCA required. But my grown-up daughter put her name down for the teeny blonde morsel and eagerly awaited the day she would be allowed to collect it and take it home to meet her children.
She even chose a name - as the poor mite had arrived without one - Minion.
There was great excitement the day Minion was ready to collect. We all trooped along to greet the new member of the extended family and she was handed over.
Despite having a shaved belly and stitches, she still looked cute and cuddly, but...
"Um, why is her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth?" I asked.
The SPCA volunteer explained that when Minion went to the vet to be spayed she had a routine dental check and quite a few of her teeth were decayed and had to be removed. Mostly down one side, hence there were no teeth there to keep her tongue from flopping out.
Oh, and the vet had found Minion had a bung back knee too, which explained the slight limp.
None of us had noticed the limp when we first met Minion but, oh well, we weren't expecting her to hunt down wildebeest or anything so she'd be fine.
The tongue thing was somewhat disconcerting though. But we would get used to it.
Daughter proudly took her new dog home and all went swimmingly for a few months until she phoned me.
"Mum..." she said.
"I have no money and I'm busy this weekend," I answered, covering requests for a loan and babysitting in one hit.
"No, it's Minion."
It had transpired that Minion was not exactly house-trained. In fact not at all house trained. Which, as she was only small, hadn't posed a huge problem - more paper towel-sized than mop-sized - until my daughter's baby had begun to crawl.
"The baby found a Minion poo on the floor," my daughter wailed. "He picked it up!"
This, she said, was not ideal. We all know where babies tend to put stuff they pick up.
The only solution was that Minion had to go somewhere else. (I did suggest she rehome the baby but that was not well received).
Happily, I had a second daughter and she was strangely eager to add a limping, tongue-lolling, incontinent small chihuahua to her household, which contained no babies, crawling or otherwise.
Minion fitted in just fine, floppy tongue and all, and with no crawling babies it seemed like a happy ending. Until...
"Mum..."
"I can let you have $20 until payday," I said.
"No," she replied. "I have a problem with Minion."
It seemed that when she had the bright idea of taking on the tiny canine, she hadn't factored carpet into the equation.
"She's done wees on the carpet and my landlord will not like it!"
The only solution was for Minion to go somewhere else.
Which is why there's a limping blonde chihuahua with its tongue hanging out living in my house. Thankfully it has learned to go in and out the cat door so the toilet issue has been largely resolved. And she doesn't bark, can't jump on the furniture and gets on with the rest of the livestock.
The only problem I have with Minion is - she snores.
This one, tiny chihuahua snores more loudly than something that small has any right to.
And she has chosen to sleep on my side of the bed.
Lying there listening to the stereo snores at 3am I had a bright idea.
I may just give my mum a call...
"Mum..."
