I always grew up with pets, but it all started with dogs. My biological mother bred Pekingese before I was even born. When I was very small and growing up in a very hard situation, my dog, Buffy, was my saving grace. He was my best friend. I lost my mother to cancer at 5 years old; she was only 33 when she left this world to be with our Father. Buffy and I were inseparable. I couldn't wait to get home from school to play with him every day. One day as my school bus approached my house and had to make the turn-around to drop me off on the right side, I noticed a cream-colored, furry animal just on the shoulder of the road. As the other kids on the bus were making fun of the dead animal, I was immediately in denial. It couldn't be Buffy! As the bus turned around and passed the animal again, I looked more closely out the window and saw MY DOG laying there, completely lifeless and blood stained! I ran up the driveway into the house screaming. My father went and retrieved our dog and we all grieved. To this day, I never really got over losing that dog.

Soon after that tragedy, I relocated to my mother's best friend's house where I would have new parents. Before my mother died she gave her friend a Pekingese puppy, Suzy, which was named after my mother. Suzy and I weren't close like I was with Buffy. She was a nippy little dog because my new parents spoiled her rotten. I was a typical kid that sometimes teased her too, so that rarely creates a great association for dogs with children. Suzy lived to be about 15. Her last several years were hard. She was sickly, suffered from very bad arthritis, and in the end, she lost her faculties.

After a short time, my mom got another Pekingese, and then another. Before we knew it we had 3. All of those puppies were purchased from the pet store, and all of them ended up having issues. The newest puppy we got, Luke, ended up having severe hip dysplasia and that was caught very early on by our vet. My mother was quick to go back to that pet store and demand some compensation, being that Luke's surgery would be very costly and wouldn't guarantee a positive result. The pet store, reluctantly, ended up giving her another puppy for compensation. This time we got a creamy white girl, Abby. Well, I guess where there's a will, there's a way because Luke, who could barely walk, ended up tying with Abby when she was only 6 months old. That tie resulted in a single puppy and was the first time I had ever experienced assisting in delivery. Abby would not let me leave for college that day. She kept tugging at my pant leg as I was heading out the door, so I stayed. She delivered that puppy right in my hands. Of course, being that Abby only had one puppy, we had to keep Peter. Around that same time, my Aunt lived with us and also had a Pekingese of her own; Dolly. Well, Dolly didn't live too long. She was only about a year or so old when we noticed redness in her eyes. She suffered from some type of hemorrhage and died a horrible death. All of our dogs were fully vaccinated, ate kibble daily, topical flea medications and always had some sort of health issues like skin allergies, heart murmurs, kidney problems, flea issues, etc. They all had to be put down. Gopee was 12 and lost all faculties. Luke was 12 and had severe arthritis and could no longer walk. Abby was 12 and had kidney failure. Peter was 13 and had cancer. I was grown and out on my own but my dad would call me every time one of them needed to be put down. I went to the vet to be with them and hold them as they were crossing over.

A good number of years went by and I had children of my own. When my second son was about 3, we decided to add a dog to our family. We surprised them that Christmas with our new puppy, Elvis! Elvis was a spunky little Malchi (pictured above). The first day I brought him home, I noticed that he had some fleas. As I started pulling his hair back, he had hundreds of fleas! I immediately ran to the pet store and upon their advice, I gave him a flea bath not knowing that young puppies shouldn't have flea baths. My instincts told me NOT to put the shampoo directly on his skin, so instead I diluted some in a bowl of water and scooped that onto him, lathered him up really well and let it kill those fleas.

The first two weeks with Elvis were very trying as he was a very sickly puppy. He had terrible diarrhea and vomiting. After many vet visits and hundreds of dollars being spent, Elvis tested negative for all the scary puppy diseases like parvo and distemper. I never knew why he was so sick those first few weeks but it did eventually calm down and we were able to enjoy our new puppy.

Elvis fell ill again a couple of months later and seemed to be lame, limping around. Elvis ended up testing positive for lyme disease at only 5 months old.

At 6 months old, I got him his rabies vaccine as required by the city where I lived. Shortly after his vaccination, he fell ill again. I took him back to the vet and Elvis now had a heart murmur. The vet asked for me to bring him in every 6 months to monitor that murmur, in which I did. My vet advised me that Elvis had a leaky heart valve and would eventually have congestive heart failure that would kill him. My vet did not expect Elvis to live past 4 years old.

We cherished every moment we had with Elvis. He filled our lives with so much joy. We continued doing everything the vet told us to do; topical flea medications, heartworm meds, more vaccines when they were due, and the same "high quality" dog food. We were feeding Acana premium food that was about $50/bag. The vet told us that one day Elvis would just start coughing and it would get worse and worse until he succumbed to congestive heart failure. Our precious dog would either suffocate or have a heart attack that would kill him.

One night that dreaded cough started and all I could do was cry. I knew it was the beginning of the end. My kids would be devastated. Elvis's cough did, indeed, get worse and worse.

During that time, I had discovered a new lifestyle for myself and my family. You see, I was also very sickly with a laundry list of ailments and disease some of which included; migraines for 20 years, fibromyalgia, bilateral plantar fasciitis, GERD, severe asthma, allergies, obesity, chronic bronchitis, chronic sinusitis, and I was also diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs at least once per year. I did everything the doctors recommended and was on countless pharmaceutical drugs that made me feel horrible. Even if they helped one ailment, they always created another in which I needed another drug for, and so on and so on. When I started losing my voice, that's when I got really scared. Losing my voice meant losing my career as a professional singer. I HAD to find an answer. God answered my prayers and an acquaintance of mine at one of the places I sang at mentioned a diet her California friend was on that had tremendous success. Well, I really wanted to lose weight and thought that my weight issues were definitely contributing to all of my other ailments so I dove in and studied the diet for about 3 months before I committed to it. It went against everything any doctor ever advised so I wanted to get well-informed before I started my journey. I committed to that diet and had fairly quick success with weight loss in the first 3 months. I also, unknowingly, made a lot of mistakes. Once I learned what I was doing wrong and made corrections, the weight started melting off. More importantly, though, something profound started to happen; I was able to walk to the bathroom upon waking up in the morning. Normally, upon waking, it would take me about an hour to be able to walk to the bathroom. Plantar fasciitis in both feet had practically crippled me daily. After about 5 months of this diet, my plantar fasciitis was completely GONE! Then, as the months went by, ALL of my other ailments and diseases disappeared as well! Just about a year prior I felt like I wasn't going to make it to my 38th birthday. Now, I felt like a new woman that age had absolutely no bearing on.

I thought to myself, if I could heal myself with food, then why couldn't I heal my dog the same way? When I linked his well-being to his diet, that's when everything changed. I quickly discovered the BARF diet; biologically appropriate raw food. I put Elvis on this BARF diet immediately, and within 3 days I saw change. His coughing got less and less. Within a month, his coughing was GONE! Now, I knew I wouldn't be able to completely heal a leaky valve but I did know that I could buy us some valuable, healthier time with our beloved pooch.

In my continued learning of a clean lifestyle, I discovered that vaccinosis from the rabies vaccine is what caused Elvis's heart murmur and leaky valve which eventually led to congestive heart failure. We continued the raw diet and Elvis improved.

I later discovered that Elvis came from a puppy mill. That puppy mill ended up being shut down, thankfully.

When I was young I had wanted to be a veterinarian but when I was 16 and still in school, I developed severe allergies to cats and other environmental triggers. I knew that becoming a vet was not in the cards for me. I ended up going to college for general studies, and then flip-flopped between 3 different majors throughout my first 2 years in college. I had several menial jobs in my youth that never really fulfilled me. Then I was able to make singing a career for many years, but I still always had a lingering passion for bringing life into the world along with a passion for health and wellness.

We decided that Elvis needed a friend so we carefully selected our first female Malshi from a reputable local breeder. Presley quickly became my little shadow. Elvis didn't care for her all that much at first, but he grew to accept her. About a year after we got Presley, we added a cute little male Maltese to our pack; Aaron. As soon as Aaron was all grown up and fell in love with Presley, we had our first confirmed pregnancy. I took Presley to the vet just to make sure everything was going okay and the vet gave me some horrifying news that Presley would most definitely need a c-section. He said there was no way she would get these 2 puppies out naturally. A c-section was over $2,500 (non emergency during business hours). An emergency c-section was upwards of $3,500 minimum! I was devastated. Her due date was Memorial Day so that made things even scarier. I made Presley an appointment for a scheduled c-section for the Friday before Memorial Day. On that Thursday, something told me to cancel the appointment and that everything would be just fine. I just needed to have some faith in what I was doing. I prayed a lot and then I canceled that appointment. Two days later, late Saturday night, Presley went into labor. Her first puppy took hours to come and he was breach. I was able to wrap a towel around him and help her every time she pushed. It took a while but she did fantastic and we had our first healthy baby boy. Within an hour she easily delivered the second boy all on her own.

To this day, we have never had to have a c-section for any of our mamas. I am proud to say we have a 100% success rate on all of our births!

Although I am extremely saddened to report that we
lost Elvis to congestive heart failure 2/4/2024,
his death wasn't in vain. Elvis was the catalyst for
the birth of Holi Shih Tzu and our continued
dedication to providing the healthiest naturally
reared puppies for Shih Tzu lovers, near and far!