A young girl in a red striped shirt holds a small Chihuahua puppy with white and gray fur indoors, bathed recently as indicated by her wet hair. A colorful rope toy is held by the puppy. 3:06
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Chihuahua mix puppy picks his person

He weighed 1.2 pounds, and he still went straight for Paola's watch. Then her pants. Then anything else he could get his teeth on. more

Paola was only fostering the Chihuahua mix, and he wasn't a calm houseguest. "He has more energy than I thought he would," she says. When he got excited, he chewed. If he was ever going to get adopted, she says, he couldn't be biting her little one.

A black-and-white dog swims with his head under the water near a stone edge. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Paola's foster pup had far more energy than she thought he would.

That little one is her daughter, Aliyana, and she noticed something. If the puppy ever hurt her, even a little, he went right to the door and started crying. "It just clicked," Paola says.

A small white and gray puppy stands on his hind legs in a black wire crate, front paws gripping the top bar. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Aliyana noticed that if the puppy ever hurt her, he went to the door and cried.

Aliyana is the one who started training him, with toys. Later he found a blanket on his bed and would rather bite that than anything else. Paola was happy with the trade. "It's better him biting the blanket," she says. They have lots of blankets.

He grew, and he got funnier. He took to sleeping on his back, which Paola calls "just the funniest thing." He and Aliyana got into plenty of trouble together, and some of it was her school books. In this house, "the dog ate my homework" would be close enough to the truth.

Paola admits that when you foster, you get attached. It was the owner of the rescue who said the rest out loud. He was already home. He had chosen his person, and his person was Aliyana.

A young girl in a red striped shirt holds a small Chihuahua puppy with white and gray fur indoors, bathed recently as indicated by her wet hair. A colorful rope toy is held by the puppy. The headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
He weighed 1.2 pounds, and he still went straight for Paola's watch.

So the family got him a tag. Paola told Aliyana to read it. She worked it out, said "What?" and burst into tears.

A child holds a small black-and-white dog close to her chest indoors. A headline runs in white letters across the lower third.Save
Once Aliyana read the new tag and put it together, the happy tears came.

From the beginning, Aliyana had said the same thing. "Mom, he's just special." Now he is staying for good. They fight, they play, and the little biter who cried at the door has the girl he picked.

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