Rest in Peace, Murphy

Early this morning, after our walk, Mommy was reading her email and I heard her gasp. She picked up the phone right away. When she hung up the phone, she was crying.

I was sitting at my window perch and turned to see what was wrong. Mommy came over to the bed and lay down, sobbing. I came over to kiss her and make it all better. She explained that our pal Murphy Brown, Uncle Dave's pup, had passed away during the night. Mommy had called Uncle Dave to express her sympathies and he was very, very sad. Murphy Brown, gone? But she was just fine when we were over at the house for the cookout. I didn't understand.

I snuggled up and laid down next to Mommy, but turned my head back to look at her because I was concerned...I hate to see my Mommy upset or sad. We stared into one another's eyes for a long moment. I could see sadness in her eyes, but I could see fear too. Somehow, looking into her eyes, I understood that, when you have a pup, it is extra hard to hear about another pup dying...because you start to think about your own pup not being in your life anymore...and that is very, very sad.

As I wrote in my previous blog entry, I loved Murphy Brown, but she never really took to me. She was a quiet older pup and I was a rambunctious young pup who was often invading her territory and taking the attention of her people (not to mention that I stole one of her chewies just about every time I came over to her house). In those first few months I knew Murphy, I was pretty intense. I was insistent that she was going to like me. I guess I made a big pest of myself. :(

Mommy told me that Murphy didn't always have a very happy, peaceful life before she came to live with Uncle Dave. I figure that at least she had those 7 years of living with Uncle Dave--knowing she was loved, getting lots of belly rubs and lovins, having her brother, Paco, to play with for a few years and having a nice big back yard to run around and chase squirrels in (she loved to chase squirrels).

Mommy says Murphy was a sweet, gentle soul. I know she had to have been to put up with me being up in her face all the time.

I will miss you, Murphy Brown. We will all miss you.

Rest peacefully, my friend.

My Five Uncles

If you are as ancient as my Mommy, you may remember there used to be a TV show called "My Three Sons"--about a single Dad with 3 boys and 1 Uncle Charlie. Well, in my case, there is a single Mom of 1 girl (me!) and my five uncles (who, unlike Uncle Charlie, do not live with us).

My uncles have very different personalities and different ways of interacting with me, but they all have one thing in common--they love pups and I love them! Hmm. Maybe that's two things ...but I digress. Here, you can see my 5 uncles in their native habitat! hehe On the left is Mommy hanging out in the mountains with Uncles Russ and Danny. On right, with Uncles Dave, Bill and Mike at a local Japanese restaurant.

When any of my uncles come to visit Mommy & I at our house or we go visit them at their house, we always have a great time...and I end up exhausted from being played with so much!! This is a very good thing cuz I LOVE attention! Let me introduce my five uncles:

Uncle Dave: He used to have a little pup named Mickie who loved to lick his face, so he doesn't mind when I lick his face--this is GREAT, because Mommy isn't wild about face licking. He now has a bigger pup named Murphy. I love her but she isn't so wild about me.

Uncle Dave is gentle in both voice and manner, and gives me great back & tummy rubs!

Uncle Mike: I don't have a picture of me with Uncle Mike yet, but he is the one in the black & white sweater in the picture at the top with Mommy. Uncle Mike is extra special to me because he is the one who is responsible for me being with Mommy! He knew the family I lived with before, who were wanting to find me a new home, and called my Mommy to see if she wanted to adopt me--and she did! Uncle Mike also puppysat me when Mommy went away in April and we had SO much fun playing and going on walks. He has lots of energy and is super sweet.

Uncle Bill: He can come off as kinda gruff when you first meet him,

but he is a total marshmallow inside! He melts for cute pups--like me!! He gets down on the floor and plays with me all the time. Like Mommy, he doesn't like the face kisses, so sometimes when he is on the floor, I will lick his bald head instead! hehehe

Uncle Bill had a close bond with Paco, a Bichon Frise who was also a close pal of Mommy's for many years. Paco died in late 2006, and Uncle Dave, Mike, Bill and my Mommy still miss him to this day. He must have been one special pup!

Uncle Russ: He is the most restrained of all my uncles. He likes me but I tend to be a little too rambunctious for him. He doesn't like face kisses, and he doesn't much like being jumped on either.

Well shoot, those are two of my most favorite behaviors--so where does that leave me, Uncle Russ? hehe You can see in this picture that I am trying to jump AND kiss him on the face, but he is looking at me warily and holding me back!

Mommy says this picture cracks her up!


Uncle Danny: Like Uncle Bill, he can seem a little gruff at first, but he is a softie on the inside! He has an older pup named Mika who has arthritis real bad, so she can't play so much anymore.

Uncle Danny lets me nibble on his fingers--something that Mommy and my other Uncles will usually chastise me for. So you know I love me some Uncle Danny! :)

Mommy says I look like a white Ewok in this picture. I'm not old enuf to have seen Star Wars, so I don't know if that is a compliment or not!

Having five Uncles is a great thing, especially when they all love and pay attention to ME! Of course, they come to see Mommy sometimes, too, and that is cool with me! :)

Here's to springtime and good friends!

Since my Mommy adopted me in the fall of 2008, pretty much all we'd ever known together is "coat weather." I spent much of my 8 months here thinking that she was this big puffy white creature because she seemed to be perpetually wearing her white ski jacket. Now that the warmer weather has arrived, Mommy takes me on longer walks several times a day. The benefit of all that exercise is that Mommy and I have lost our winter weight. I am a lean, mean, zooming machine and Mommy, well, she has a ways to go yet, but she does okay!

I am so glad I got over my fear of other doggies, cuz I have met SO many great doggie friends since I moved here. Our development has quite a few dogs in it (though not all are full-timers--we live in a beach town after all) and the next development over, where we walk frequently, has lots of them too. We often stop to talk to nice people we've met on our walks (or they come to us). They all pet me and say how cute I am and how soft my fur is. I like that part! I even made a baby giggle this week when I licked his toes! :)

Believe it or not, I also made good friends with the neighbor's tabby cat, Lynx. Lynx is an indoor/outdoor cat, so we see him a good bit when we leave for our walks. Lynx does not know how to play like a doggie--which is a disadvantage because I don't speak kitty so that I can explain it to him--but he is pretty cool nonetheless.

Yesterday and this morning, I got to play with my one of my FAVORITE doggie friends. His name is Jazz and he is a big, handsome, black and white Border Collie. He (and his people) are weekenders, so we don't see them often, but we love to play when he's here. Even though Jazz is 7 years old, he is still as playful as a pup. He gets down on his front paws to put his face at my level and then bounces up and down to entice me to play--we mostly run and play follow the leader. Since Jazz is 3 times my size, you would think that I would always be following HIM--but not so! I can run like the wind!

When this post originally appeared, I had no picture of Jazz to include. He was here this weekend and Mommy got a picture AND a video of him, so I'm editing my post to include both.

My favorite doggie friend who lives in town full time is Rosie, who lives in the next development over. Rosie is a tiny Pomeranian who nearly always sports a sweater or other colorful outfit. She is a real girly girl! Unfortunately, though we are great pals, she will not play with me much. I kinda got my feelings hurt at first, but her Dad told us that she just doesn't like to play. She mostly likes to relax. :) But check out this rare moment of Rosie playing (a little) with me:

I have been driving Mommy crazy lately. If I look outside and see it is sunny, I will whine and whine at her to take me outside...even if I was just outside an hour ago...because I want to enjoy the weather and be where the action is! When I whine and she asks "What do you want?" all I have to do is look out the window and she knows....I want more SPRINGTIME!

The path of destruction

I have not been a good girl this week. Mommy has been VERY upset with me on several occasions. I'm not sure what's up with me, but I just keep destroying things this week.

My destructive streak began earlier this week. Mommy had gone out--to her volunteer job, to the movies, shopping, I can't remember. All I know is that she left me. (pout) Anyway, there was this folded piece of paper that fell off the top of the dryer when Mommy went out the laundry room door to get into the car. Well, I decided to demonstrate my unhappiness at being left alone by shredding this piece of paper into a hundred pieces. When Mommy got home, and opened the laundry room door to come into the house, she GASPED. I was too excited to see her to realize that I was about to be in BIG trouble. Turns out, it could have been worse. The piece of paper just had some coupons for Kohl's--Mommy's favorite store to get bargains--but she still was pretty upset at the mess.

Next came some more paper shredding. See, I have this--issue--with occasionally pooping on the carpet, so Mommy puts doggie weewee pads down in the area of her bedroom where I usually leave my goodies and has been training me (TRYING to, anyway) to go on the paper and not the carpet. I did it once--what does she want from me? Anyway, another day while she was gone, I shredded one of the weewee pads--it was everywhere. Did that the next day too. WHEW was Mommy mad.

The piece de resistance of my path of destruction, though, was Thursday afternoon while Mommy was at the homeowner's association meeting. See, I got particularly upset because the meeting was right next door, and I think she should have taken me along...but, nooooooooo.

Next to our front door, we have what is called a sidelight--a long thin pane of glass so that you can see who is at your door when the doorbell rings, etc. Mommy hung 3 beautiful ornaments on the glass that had been a gift from her best friend years ago and that had been hanging in the window of her old place in Virginia.

Well, Mommy didn't notice when she first got home from the meeting, but later, she saw me chewing on something and, when she took it away from me, she saw that it was a part of the butterfly ornament, and that it was chewed beyond repair--ruined. Around me, she found pearls and rhinestones and all of the other decorations from the butterfly's wings.

WHEW!!!! I thought she was going to EXPLODE, she was so mad and yelling so loud. When she comes after me to spank my butt, I am faster than her and crafty too, so she usually gives up and just yells. Not this time. Ohhhh noooooo. She kept chasing me and chasing me until she got me. I got a good spankin' over that. Not only was she upset about me ruining her favorite ornament, but she was scared about whether I had swallowed any of those decorations and if they might hurt my tummy.

But that wasn't the end, ohhh nooooo. All evening, Mommy ignored me. She would not give me any bites of human food when she had her food. No attention and no human food!!! ACK! Like an arrow right through my HEART!!!

This morning, she found me with the other half of the butterfly. OOPS!!! Right now, she is in her office and she has me locked in there. I can't go roaming about the house on my own as usual while she is typing and playing her games. Nope...I have to stay right here in this tiny room.

Will I learn my lesson? Only time will tell. But if she'd just stay home 24/7/365 and pet and play with me every minute of every day (when she wasn't feeding me human food), I would not destroy things. Why does she not see that? It's so simple. (sigh) Ah well. Life goes on.

Slip slidin' away

I intended to post this earlier in the week--when it happened--but I needed Mommy to type it for me and she has been very lazy this week (you just can't get good help anymore).

Back in my very first blog post, I talked about how Mommy was dressed up like the Michelin Man to walk me because it was cold. Well, at least she thought that was cold--until this week. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, it was extremely cold and the wind was blowing fiercely...even *I* was walking super fast and pulling Mommy down the street so I could do my business and get home, and I am not usually bothered by the cold.

Anyway, a few days before that cold spell, it had rained--a lot--and there were still puddles around. I went to walk through this puddle that I usually walk through at the entrance to our driveway, except it wasn't a puddle anymore--it was ice!--and I started to slide. Mommy started to laugh--just snortin' up a storm--while I was slip slidin' away. BAD MOMMY! I suppose she can't help herself--she thinks everything I do is pretty cute/funny. Well, maybe not when I poop on the carpet or eat her favorite houseplant, but most other things.

On Wednesday, the weather was much nicer, so we took a longer walk. As we are approaching the development where we live, Mommy stepped in some dirt that had been frozen the day before, but it wasn't frozen anymore--it was mud!--and Mommy started to slide. I don't mean to bite the hand that feeds me, but if I could have figured out how to laugh, I would have!

Thankfully, no puppies or mommies were hurt in the process!

Stay tuned for my Christmas Day post, complete with pictures!

New adventures and new friends

Yesterday, Mommy's friend David came over in the day time and then they promptly left. I was NOT a happy Tzu. I have this thing Mommy calls "separation anxiety"--which means that when Mommy leaves me alone, I go BONKERS!

So, after a while, they come back, and David is carrying this BIG box. Mommy and David worked a while on getting something out of the box. It was this big black square thing and David put it in Mommy's entertainment center where the old big black thing had been. Then there was lots of discussion and curse words and booklets and wires.

This part was REALLY frustrating for me, because I wanted to be right there in the middle of it all, helping of course, but Mommy kept saying that I was in the way and made me to go back to my chair and lay down. She got pretty testy there after the tenth or so time I got up and got under foot, and Mommy doesn't usually get testy with me unless I do something REALLY bad. I just couldn't help myself! I had to see what all the excitement was and to be with Mommy and to get David to play with me.

Then, the doorbell rang, and two more of Mommy's friends came by. The tall one I already met once before, but the other one I didn't. Well the other one got into the mix with the wires and the big black square thing and I heard him pointing to some other boxes in the entertainment center and saying all these letters like CD, DVD, VHS and I was like "WHATEVER!" cuz none of them were letters I understand (like PP).

FINALLY, they seemed to finish (the big black box comes to life and they are all oohing and ahhing and I'm thinking "GREAT. Just what Mommy needs...more reasons to watch the big black box!"). Finally, I get to meet the new guy. He was very friendly! He played with me and pet me and didn't even mind when I was chewing on his fingers! COOL! I like this guy!

The tall guy, who was friendly the last time, would reach down and pet me but wouldn't let me jump up on his lap. Turns out, doctors had cut on his tummy and took out one of his parts. Then I understood why he didn't want me jumping on him, cuz when I was a littler puppy, the doctor cut on MY tummy and took out one of MY parts. I sure know I wouldn't have wanted anyone jumping and sitting on MY tummy after that!

Finally, all the friends leave and Mommy is watching that dog training show again (that is always trouble, because she gets ideas, and those ideas always involve ME having to learn something or stop doing something). Except now, because of the new bigger, clearer black box, everything is REALLY big and clear and colorful! Wow. So I stood right in front of the TV and watched too! I even put my front paws up on the edge of the entertainment center, cuz those doggies seemed so real and close that I thought maybe I could sniff their butts! But, drat it, no such luck.

Even with all of the frustration because everyone was focused on the darned black box and not ME, Missy the amazingly adorable Shih Tzu, it was a pretty cool and exciting day!

That Mommy, she's such a pill!

When people meet me, they always say "She's SO cute." to which Mommy usually replies "Yes, but she's a PILL!" and then there is much laughing among the humans. I'll admit, it annoys me. Aren't mommies supposed to love you unconditionally, even if you ARE a pill? And besides, Mommy can be quite the pill herself sometimes!

Like potty time. So it's time for me to go potty and what does Mommy do? She says "I have to go potty first." Say WHAT? This is MY potty time! So I give her this look like "Whachu talkin' bout Willis?" and she smiles and says "First, Mommy go potty and then Missy go potty!" Like that's supposed to explain everything!!!?! And then, she doesn't just go potty quickly. No. She reads a magazine sometimes! And I'm standing there in the bathroom whining and crossing my legs and she smiles at me and says "I know you have to go potty, sweetie." Yea, well, THAT ISN'T HELPING, mommy!!!!"

Also, she got these great new doggy treats from Amazon, but she will only use them for training. Well JEEZ, they taste GREAT (they look and smell like beef jerky--YUM!), so of course I'm going to want them more often. But when I whine and go stand by the counter where they are, she says "No treats now--you haven't eaten all your dinner. Later. We'll do training later." I even sit up or jump on my hind legs and dance around to try to show her I'm willing to work for treats, but NO GO. She sticks to her guns. PILL!

She cooks all kinds of great-smelling stuff, but if she gives me ANY human food at all, it's usually all healthy stuff, like carrots, red bell pepper or apple. Of course, she DOES give me sweet potatoes and that is my most FAVORITE food. Why can't she be like those people on that dog training show she's always watching--people who let their dogs eat off their plate, sometimes even stand right on the table! Why couldn't *I* have a mommy like that? (sigh)

And lastly, and I'm sorry that this may offend those of you with delicate sensibilities, but can we talk about mommy's gas problem? I have to be touching her when we sleep and, since she sleeps on her side, sometimes I am near her hind quarters when these huge gaseous clouds will come blasting out. I mean, I love her and all, but P-U! Sometimes I have to get up and move!

Anyhow, I just wanted to set the record straight that, while I may be a pill, I am certainly not the only one in the house!