Her name was Achik. She was a Manchester terrier.
But her owner, Tony Ouzounian, described her as "JoJo's wife from New Orleans." He bought her there a few months after he got JoJo.JoJo and Achik were "husband and wife" for eight years. She was half his size, weighing only two pounds. She was shyer and shivered more than he did, in the way tiny, tense dogs do.
They had several litters of puppies. "Babies" Ouzounian called them.
Like the words "husband," "wife" and "babies" suggest, they were Ouzounian's family.
That's why he is suing Utah Power and PacifiCorp for the slaying of Achik. On Aug. 2, a Utah Power meter man killed her with an unknown sharp instrument because she barked when he went into Ouzounian's Olympus Cove back yard.
The meter man was lost, a Utah Power supervisor explained to Ouzounian. He had been sent to Ouzounian's neighborhood on Monte Verde Drive to check the meter of a woman who complained that her power bill was too high. But he ended up in Ouzonian's back yard instead. When Achik began barking, the meter reader drove an unknown weapon through her skull and into her brain, according to the lawsuit.
Then he left the yard and drove away. No note. No explanatory call.
"We're very sorry the event happened. We offered to replace this animal. Replacing it is about as much as we can do," said David Eskelsen, spokesman for Utah Power.
Ouzounian's nephew found the dead dog and called his uncle at work. "I was all in tears. I couldn't believe she was gone," Ouzounian said.
He learned of the meter man's visit from his neighbors. He called Utah Power for several days. Finally, a supervisor called him back. The meter man panicked when both dogs barked, and he hit one of the dogs, she explained.
The woman said the company would pay for the dog if Ouzounian would come down and fill out a form.
"You'll just pay for a new dog and forget about it," he asked. "Is this how the system works?"
Suddenly Achik's death and what Ouzounian saw as Utah Power's calloused response became a symbol of everything that was wrong in America. His father moved Ouzounian and his siblings here from Armenia years ago so they could have more choices, Ouzounian told the woman. And now he couldn't even switch power companies.
So he played the game the way Americans do. He hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit.
According to the suit, Ouzounian seeks damages for Achik's death, his emotional distress, and Utah Power's trespass. The complaint also talks about punitive damages.
But what Ouzounian really wants is a change of heart at Utah Power. "I want to find out what kind of training these people have and how many dogs they have killed. I don't want this to happen again," he said.
OK, maybe he wants a little vengeance, too. "I want people to know what Utah Power did and walked away from. I want the public to know. I don't want them to get away with it.
"I don't know of any instance where we have killed any dogs," Eskelsen said. "I've been here for eight years, and this is the first one I've heard of."
The company put together a training program for its meter readers last year. "We had a dog expert bring some trained dogs so meter readers could learn to recognize an aggressive dog from a dog that was afraid or territorial.
"We're very sorry. We'd be glad to replace the animal. I don't see the need to litigate this. I don't know what he wants over and above the replacement of his animal," Eskelsen said.
But its not about another dog. It's about Achik, Ouzounian said.
"I'm a single guy. This is all I have: my dogs. When I come home, they are my happiness. I would watch them play and jump around."
But JoJo won't play or jump now that Achik is gone. "He's sad," Ouzounian said. When Achik was alive, Ouzounian often put music on and his dogs would sit side by side and howl to the music.
"Now JoJo howls by himself."