Our little Yorkie, Penney was born in Kansas City on November 23, 1999. My elderly friend bought her when she was 3 months old. She named her after the J.C. Penney store from which she retired, thus the name Penney. At that time I had gotten married and moved to Colorado. When Penney was 4 1/2 years old, Lucille fell and broke bones in her arm and couldn’t take care of Penney so she wrote and asked if I wanted to buy her….sight un-seen of course other than pictures. My husband and I had agreed to get her.
At that time we had Taz a Dobie-Lab and a 6 pound Yorkie named Levi who had cancer. On May 5, 2003 I went and got her. She was so little, only 3 1/4 pounds. She had always slept in a pen with Lucille’s birds in the same room. She didn’t know about being outside much as she had never taken walks on a leash. Three days after she was with us we had to put down our precious Levi.
Taz took Penney under paw and taught her how to potty in the yard and also taught her it was okay to walk with her on a leash. Six weeks after that Taz had to be put down because of kidney failure. We had only Penney left and so of course she was treated like a princess.
Two years after that we bought Penney’s friend Buddy, a Conure. Since he lived with her before they were like soul mates reunited. We had a few rough times with illnesses but she held up like a trooper. She loved being outside but hated the snow and wind. She even gained to be 5 1/2 pounds and slept in our bed.
In 2006 Penney kept getting sick but her doctor couldn’t tell why. On November 23rd 2006 we took her to CSU Vet teaching hospital and after much study they did radiation dye and found out that she had a portosystemic shunt problem that didn’t allow her blood to flow right. 64% of her blood went around her liver. She had a genetic problem which usually kills before the age of 2 years. She had a 50% chance of living through surgery and we took that chance. With surgery and around the clock care she made it. It also took lots of medicines that mom and dad had to give her. In April of 2008 she started kidney failure but she was a fighter — with odds against her she passed from this life November 7, 2008. She is forever in our hearts. Everyone misses her so much.
With love, The Hill Family