NATCHEZ — The loyalty the Lynch children showed a stray dog proved too much for their parents to resist in making the pooch a full-fledged part of the family.

The Dart fell on Somerset Drive Tuesday where a little girl and her Chihuahua mix were playing in the back yard.

But choosing to make the canine a member of the Lynch household wasn’t the typical trip to the pet store.

Marlee, 7, and her older brother Landon, 9, saw the dog strolling around the neighborhood in 2010 and took the stray to their mother, Monica, to figure out who the dog’s owner was.

Monica said they searched high and low to hopefully bring the dog back to its rightful owner.

“We were at the beach for a week and when we got home, he was just wandering around the neighborhood, so we asked around and we even went to the humane shelter to see if anybody was missing a dog,” she said.

After a few days of trying to do the right thing, Marlee and Landon knew the possibility of finding the owner was unlikely, and decided to propose keeping the dog — sort of.

“We begged her, ‘can we keep the dog?’” Landon said.

Monica said she wasn’t initially a fan of keeping the mutt in her home, but she started to realize how much the children liked him and slowly started to cave in to the idea.

“We just gave in,” she said. “We kept thinking someone would eventually take the dog, but we always wanted the kids to have a dog. We just never thought it would be this dog. But it was just one of those things where he hung out for awhile then became part of the family.”

Monica said there were two ways she and her husband Jason knew the dog was here to stay.

“I guess when I went and paid the bills to have him neutered and get his shots is when you know he’s family now,” Monica said. “Also, about two years ago when he ran out of the fence, you know he’s a part of the family when you go and look for him.

“(Landon) was trying out for baseball that day, and he was a wreck. He was worried about finding the dog.”

And so was Marlee.

“I thought he was going to die, I was really scared,” she said. “But we found him at the car wash.”

With the Chihuahua now part of the family, Landon named him Kio, a tribute to his former obsession with collecting keys of all sorts.

Landon said his favorite thing about Kio is how active he is.

“I like how much he moves and how much energy he uses,” he said.

Marlee loves to snuggle against Kio’s fur and cradle him in her arms while wrapped in a blanket just like a baby.

“We were happy that we got Kio,” she said as she hugged the dog.

Monica said Kio is Marlee’s first pet, as their previous dog died before Marlee was born.

“That kind of convinced us that we should have this dog,” Monica said.

Kio is very protective of his new family, and though his bark is bigger than his bite, Monica said she is happy her children found something to love and care for.