Fizzi's First Valentine

Fizzi is my little seven-pound applejack, meaning he is half apple head chihuahua and half Jack Russell terrier. I brought him home when he was eight days old. Right away he had me wrapped around his tiny paw. Having Fizzi is like having a baby that will never grow up and I spoil him just as much as I did my two children when they were babies.

Calling Fizzi spoiled might seem a little odd at first, but once you hear about his life, I am sure you will agree. For starters, Fizzi’s favorite kibble is Racheal Ray’s chicken flavored little bites so that is what I get him, along with a variety of treats. He also drinks bottled water because our tap water is not great. In the backseat of our Jeep Fizzi has a car seat and his stroller is in the very back.

In my bedroom Fizzi has multiple beds and blankets. I even took the doors off the bottom of my nightstand and turned it into a little dog apartment for him. Fizzi also has an entire dresser drawer full of clothes. His outfits range from pajamas to shirts and hoodies to jerseys and of course he has his harness.

As if all of this did not make him spoiled already, he has taken over a whole corner of my room with his toys. He has so many that they no longer fit into his toy box. This is in large part to the fact that Fizzi likes a wide range of toys. He has soft toys of all shapes and sizes, some squeak and some do not. It is the same with his rubber toys.

One day I bought a large plush squid toy for my big dog, but he showed no interest in it at all, so I offered it to Fizzi. It soon became clear that he had a favorite toy. He not only pulled all the fluff out but then he dragged the empty toy everywhere. Eventually I found an octopus toy that was smaller, so I brought it home. My plan was to give him the new octopus and take the empty squid toy, but Fizzi had a plan of his own.

Fizzi took the octopus and kept the empty squid. To my surprise he did with the octopus what he had done to the squid. He pulled the fluff out and began taking it around with him. It quickly became obvious to me that he had picked his favorite toys and they had tentacles. By the time Valentine's Day came he had six tentacle creatures in his toy box.

I had gone to Walmart to pick up a few things and came across the perfect Valentine for Fizzi. There in the center of a large aisle was a bin filled with gigantic stuffed animals. I stopped to poke through them like I always do and that is when I saw it, a pink octopus that was at least ten times Fizzi’s size. Now I would not normally spend over thirty dollars on a stuffed animal but something inside screamed that it was perfect.

Valentine’s Day of 2022 was Fizzi’s first Valentine’s Day. Fizzi and I shared a Valentine breakfast before daddy, and I presented him with his first Valentine, the octopus of epic proportion. He was so excited he could not figure out what to do. He had the zoomies for a few minutes, then crazy snuggles on the octopus, finished with a dizzying tail chase. We named the overgrown octopus Seven because it was the seventh tentacled creature had received.

The expression on Fizzi’s face when he saw his first Valentine made my heart melt. It was happy, love, confusion all at the same time but best of all were the loves that I got once he calmed down.

Ever since then I am convinced that Fizzi is fascinated with tentacled animals because of the way he looks them over and plays with them. It is clear his little collection means a lot to him. He checks on them while they are in the toy box with a sniff and little tap. However, Seven is never far away from him. He even whines to get me to lift Seven up on my bed when it is time for night-night.