Finding an animated movie?

I remember watching a movie(animated) a long time ago I have it on vhs but all of those are packed up and I can't find them. But the little girl is dropped off at her aunts house because her family is having money problems and she came from a place where the climate is cold and dog sledding is very popular. Her aunt lives in California (I think) and she(her aunt) has a show dog named Duchess (I think) who eventually has a litter of puppies. The little girl finds a puppy in the celler. In the celler a rat talks to the puppy. The little girl makes friends with the maid. The maid buys her a skateboard the puppy pulls her on it, so she decides to train it to sled. I wish I could remember the name of the movie. It wasn't very huge. Could have been a simple B grade movie. I think the little girl's name was abigail, samantha, melody or something. The movie was about as famous as kiki's delivery service.