Category Archives: Health & Grooming

Shih Tzu Day 124: Halloween for the Shih Tzus

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bad start for Halloween

a shih tzu keeping an eye on a squirrel.a squirrel running along a fence.

 

 

 

 

Halloween for the shih tzus began with one of them throwing up yellow bile. It was one of the female shih tzus, because I found it when we came downstairs. I smelled all of their breath to see which shih tzu it was, and Flower had the bad breath. John said that didn’t necessarily mean that she threw up, since she could have eaten someone else’s. Gross, but I know it could happen. I don’t think that is the case, though, or else two shih tzus would have bad breath. None of the dogs acted sick, so I don’t know what caused the problem.

morning shih tzu squirrel notification

two shih tzus in black and white clothes. a shih tzu at the door wearing skull sweater

 

 

 

 

a shih tzu in polka dots and one in skull sweater. a shih tzu wearing a black and white polka dot dress with hood.

 

 

 

 

two shih tzu sisters wearing black and white polka dot dresses.a shih tzu and a trick or treater.

 

 

 

 

Candy spent a lot of time outside this morning prowling the perimeter again, looking for squirrels. Every once in a while, she would bark and summon the troops outside. What’s funny is that the dogs can’t always see the squirrel very well, so he will be running one way and the shih tzus will be running the other in search of him. Nigel doesn’t always join in on the squirrel hunt. Sometimes he lets the girl shih tzus do the chasing and he lays in the grass chewing on a bone.

shih tzu door greeter 

I took Nigel to PetSmart and Petco. I dressed him in his black sweater with the skull on it for Halloween. He was very excited to get to go in the car. He did very well, until he saw a big dog in Petco and his dog aggression came out. He started barking, growling and straining at the leash, so I had to pick him up and carry him until the dog was in another part of the store.

two shih tzus that look like werewolves. three blurry shih tzus with weird eyes.

 

 

 

 

When I came home, I dressed up the girls. They didn’t have costumes, but I dressed them all in black and white. Dottie and Flower wore matching polka dot dresses. I had returned Candy’s black and white houndstooth dress that was too small, but I finally found a medium, so I dressed her up in that. I definitely spend too much time looking at dog clothes at Ross! It took me a while to catch Candy to put her dress on her, since she kept running under the dining room table.

I knew that no one but John and me would see the girls, but I still thought it was fun. As I thought, Nigel was the door greeter, once the trick-or-treaters started arriving. He ran to the door every time the doorbell rang. When the doorbell wasn’t ringing, he ran to to the door anyway, waiting for the next group of children to come along. Again, the only problem we had was when a group came up that included a big dog, who waited in the driveway. Nigel showed his dog aggression again, so I’m sure the parents were glad to be off to the next house. Well, the good news is that Nigel is great with children and small dogs, so that is still better adjusted than Joey was and the shih tzu sisters are.

Shih Tzu Day 114: Housebreaking Setback

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back to housebreaking 101

A shih tzu protests being accused of not being housebroken (subject: housebreaking)I said yesterday that we had accomplished a housebreaking goal by moving the training pads by the back door. The pads went back into the dining room this morning because two incidences demonstrated a housebreaking setback.

First, thinking that housebreaking was at a different level, we let Dottie and Flower come in the bedroom, and someone took the opportunity to pee on the carpet. Also, when I went downstairs, I saw that Flower had peed on the red blanket on her couch. They are again barred from coming in the bedroom, and Flower got couch privileges taken away. So we are not as far along in our housebreaking as we thought. I should have appreciated our accomplishments in housebreaking Joey. There is a big difference in housebreaking a Yorkie puppy and puppy mill dogs.

a shih tzu between two couch cushions.Housebreaking isn’t the only difference between Joey and the shih tzus: licking is another. She used to lick faces, arms, hands. Not the shih tzus, though, but the surprise me at times. Flower came up once today and licked my feet, then quickly walked away. No idea if that was affection or what. Maybe she was apologizing for the housebreaking problems.

The morning frolic

a shih tzu chewing on a yellow bear.I try to keep the shih tzus outside as long as possible, as part of the housebreaking plan. I think Candy wanted to play after breakfast, but Nigel ran in with the other girls. I opened the door later and she started to come in. Nigel started to go out the door, paused and then turned around and got behind her. I guess he was going to push her in if she changed her mind.

a shih tzu in someone's arms.Then the morning frolic started near the dining room table. When I started to clean off the table, Nigel wandered over to his dog bed and started loudly chewing on a bone. Flower rivaled the noise playing with Yellow Bear. Actually, she wasn’t playing with it. Yellow Bear has a round plastic thing attached to him, and Flower likes chewing on plastic, so that’s what was causing the noise.

While they chewed, Candy sat under a dining room chair making peculiar noises. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong. I got the impression she might have been trying to get Nigel’s attention, but I doubt if he could hear her over his loud chewing.

grooming goes better than housebreaking

shih tzu with ears up like a rabbit.At least we seem to be doing a little better with grooming than with housebreaking. We got the kids’ faces and paws trimmed today. We are growing out their hair a little, so we didn’t get out the clippers. They were much easier to manage because of that. We also cleaned all of their eyes.

shih tzu getting eye cleaned with warm water on a cotton ball.Candy ran to hide under the trailer after we were done, Dottie acted as if it was business as usual and Flower ran back to Shih Tzu Central. Flower used to get so stressed out after getting on the grooming table, but that must not have been the case, because she immediately started chewing on something.

Nigel discovers the basement

two shih tzus playing.

I had to make a trip to the basement after my discovery that Flower needs a lot more housebreaking work. My washer and dryer get quite the workout these days. Nigel never used to know where I went when I went to do laundry, and he used to scamper upstairs to look for me, not understanding that the basement stairs and other stairs are in opposite directions. However, he finally followed me far enough to see where I was going. He ran downstairs when I went down and wandered around until it was time for us to go back up.

Shih Tzu Day 108: Dog Bath For Four

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Dog bath time for the girls and Nigel

shih tzu on a grooming table.I decided this morning that it was dog bath time again. This time, though, we had to bathe four dogs instead of three.

After Nigel first got here, we put him up on our grooming table and trimmed his fur slightly.

shih tzu in sink.He had just gotten stitches, so we couldn’t do too much. He was no trouble at all, so we figured his dog bath would be a piece of cake. We were wrong, though. His good grooming behavior must have been because he wasn’t feeling good.

shih tzu in a towelWe got out the Tropiclean puppy shampoo, sat him in the sink and started our process. He fought us every inch of the way, splashing water on us and trying to get out of the sink. Although they have been a trial at bath time in the past, Dottie, Candy and Flower all seemed easy after dealing with him.

We are growing their hair longer, and I imagine there will be more tangles, so I plan to pick up the Tropiclean tangle remover I saw at Petco. However, for now, the next step was blow drying. In the past, I tried to do it in the bathroom, by myself, and whoever I was trying to dry kept getting away and running around in circles, trying to escape, while I pointed the blow dryer at them. This time, we used the blow dryer on all of them on the kitchen counter. I held on to each one while John dried them, and that worked better.

Home alone

shih tzu with a chicken and apple treat.We had to leave at 10:45 for Gabe’s baby shower, so Dottie didn’t get to sit with mom at all this morning. We were at the shower for several hours and then decided we would go see our grandson Keith’s football game. We didn’t end up getting home until after 5 o’clock. All the shih tzus were very excited to see us when we finally got home.

 

Shih Tzu Day 103: The Shihtzuation with Nigel

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crazy little thing called Nigel

A shih tzu howlinga shih tzu in his dog bed.Our household is getting used to Nigel. John has been his biggest fan since day one. I think he’s adorable, but Nigel can be a handful. This morning he crawled into my lap and stayed there for awhile. Every now and then he would look up at me with a very sweet expression. I jokingly told John that when/if he leaves, we will retire his little black skull sweater, like when sports figures’ numbers are retired. John suggested we could frame it and hang it on the wall.

shih tzu with a Milo's Kitchen bag.shih tzu with tongue out of mouth.Flower and Candy are getting used to him too. At first, it seemed like they weren’t quite sure if he was replacing them. No, I don’t know how dogs think, but they did seem to retreat a little. I just kept giving them lots of love and telling them that this was their home and they were staying. I think Dottie accepts him, but she just tolerates him, kind of like when she tolerates when Flower wants to enter “her” space on the couch.

waggle, waggle

two shih tzus a shih tzu and a childEvery once in a while, Candy and Flower will suddenly leave Shih Tzu Central to saunter in front of the couch, going who knows where. Usually, they head for their home under the dining room table, like it was one of those makeshift forts kids make, thinking that once there, no one else will see them.

shih tzu begging for pizza.Sometimes, they turn right around and saunter back. It is really cute when they stop in front of my computer stand, where I can’t see them, and nuzzle or slightly lick my toes. Then, when I look down, Flower will do her little head waggle and Candy her butt waggle.

I always tell them to come up and see me, but usually, Candy walks on by. Flower often comes closer, puts her paws on the top edge of the couch, stretches and then slides clear down to the floor until she is flat. It is so cute, but I don’t know why she does it. It would be interesting to see what she would do if Dottie wasn’t queen of her end of the couch and Nigel didn’t reign over the John end. Usually when they start getting restless, I herd them outside, give them a Milo’s Kitchen dog treat or something else, and then try to get them to play in the yard.

I love you this big

Nigel with dog treat in mouthMy shih tzu trio couldn’t be more “my girls” than if I had birthed them. As Scottie McCreery, the reigning American Idol would say, I love them “this big.” I acknowledge their dysfunctions and fears. I have more patience with their idiosyncrasies than I ever thought I would have with a canine companion. Still, I have to admit that it is refreshing having a puppy in the house that loves people easily and hasn’t learned fear.

two shih tzus on a couchI know that Nigel’s life was different. I wish I knew what it was. John doesn’t understand how anyone could turn Nigel over to an animal shelter. Looking at him and seeing how he loves people, I assume he had a loving home. Maybe his family just couldn’t afford taking care of him when he had pneumonia. Maybe he was sick before that. We will never know, but it’s easy to wonder about his life before.

All we know is that the last couple months of his life were tough, but he seems very well adjusted. It was heartwarming watching the way that he completely trusted Leticia and Candace’s children, climbing into every lap that was available.

We also thought it was so cute the way that John’s sister Lynda and her husband Jeff embraced him, even though Jeff joked about him sneezing all over him. I imagine that is aftereffects of the pneumonia. He does sneeze a lot, and his big eyes always water. Despite that, he is so cute.

I thought he seemed a little down this afternoon. He was very excited when I got home though. I’m not sure what happened. Earlier he was resting by Dottie, with his head on her side. Since they are the two couch dogs, that’s par for the course. Maybe she gave him one of her ferocious growls, telling him he was intruding on her space. I try to stop that when I am there, but I can’t always be there.

in the ring

Candy and Flower picked a play fight with each other this afternoon. They were fighting in their make-believe ring for quite a while, their paws up. Well, they look more like dancing ponies than wrestlers. I saw Nigel watching them, and thought he probably wanted to play, but they haven’t yet accepted him, either in the morning when they get up or later in the day, in their “reindeer games.” My hope is that they will accept him soon. After all, they sure know what it’s like to be a dog down on their luck!

Shih Tzu Day 98: The Shih Tzus Weigh In

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Weigh In

three shih tzusthree shih tzusI keep looking at my little girls and thinking that Dottie and Flower may need to eat a little less! I finally got out their adoption paperwork and checked their weight from when we got them. Dottie weighed the same and Flower and Candy have gained a half pound, so it’s not as bad as I thought. I was surprised that Flower, at 14.5 pounds, weighs a half pound more than Dottie.

I think Candy is at a good weight, at 11.5. I also weighed Nigel, since we are trying to get him to gain weight after his illness. I didn’t weigh him when he got here, but Delores had told me he weighed about 9 pounds. He weighed 10.5 today.

Best Dressed

shih tzu in a houndstooth dressshih tzu in black sweaterWhen I was at Ross Dress For Less today, I couldn’t resist looking at pet stuff. I saw the cutest little houndstooth dress. It looked pretty small, but I thought it might fit Candy. I also saw a black sweater with a skull on it that I thought would be perfect for Nigel. Nigel’s fit him just right. I thought Candy’s fit, but when John got home he thought it looked a little snug. I will have to take it back and see if I can find a larger size. John said it looked like Candy and Nigel were going to a school dance or something. It would have been cute to get their picture together, but I would have had to force them to sit together.