Category Archives: Visitors

Shih Tzu Day 71: Country Dog, Shake It For Me

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the shih tzus and the unwelcome guest

John went downstairs at about 4:30 to let the shih tzus out, but Candy was the only one that would go outside. After that, they were perfectly quiet. Their sharp doggie ears heard me get up at 6:45 and go in the bathroom, and the shih tzus started barking. When I opened the door, they rushed me excitedly.

<em srcset=shih tzu on dog bed looking bored.” width=”300″ height=”199″ />After I fed them and brought them inside, the shih tzus sat on the carpet staring at me, as if to say, “What now?” I usually leave them to themselves after they come inside, and start my work. This morning, I sat on the carpet with Candy and Flower for a while, rubbing those cute little shih tzu faces between my hands. I am trying to follow a Twitter friend’s website advice and give them daily, planned “love time.”

<u srcset=shih tzu eying a treat” width=”300″ height=”199″ />two shih tzus watch another get a treat.My stepdaughter Candace came over mid-morning to help me organize some papers. The dogs didn’t immediately growl at her, because she didn’t stop at Shih Tzu Central to say hi. The shih tzus did growl at her later, however, when she walked too close to them. After she’d been here about an hour, I ushered Candy, Flower and Dottie outside to see if they would let Candace give them a treat. I am starting to think Dottie will take food from anyone; she eagerly approached her. Candy and Flower stayed in the yard, staring at the treat and at Candace, but only taking a few steps towards her, then moving back. She ended up throwing them some chicken jerky, which they picked up and ate.

shih tzu getting jerky from porchAfter we came inside, Candy went up to her room to hide. When Candace and I left for lunch, I put the gate across the door, to prevent Candace from going in there and peeing on the floor, not knowing that she was already in the room. When we came back, I looked around the dining room and living room and couldn’t find her. I looked in the spare room, just in case, and found her sitting in the closet, resting on a purse.

shih tzu hiding in closet.Flower jumped up on the couch to see me several times in the afternoon. On one of the occasions, she brought her Oinkies pigskin treat with her. I thought I’d try the Hartz brand this time, because it has a sweet potato center. They seem to like it better than the other brands of that type of treat.

shake It, country dog

shih tzu shaking her buttI realized that we have been lazy this week — no grooming, no trying to get them on a leash. The only training I have been doing is still trying to get them to pee on the training pad and not on the carpet.

shih tzu shaking her butt in excitementWhen I came down this morning, there were three yellow spots on the two pads I put down, and even some poop, so someone is trying. Candy continues her habit of napping on it and chewing on treats on it, so I doubt if she is using the training pads for their intended purpose.

shih tzu shaking her butt in excitementBut good news. It’s official. Candy now gets excited when John gets home. Country singer Luke Bryan has a song called “Country Girl (Shake It For Me).” That is my theme song for Candy, only I sing to her, “Country Dog (Shake It For Me).” She is just so adorable when she shakes her little bootie.

Flower is getting better. She isn’t where Candy is, but when John got home tonight, she did act halfway excited. They now know that treats quickly follow after he comes home.

Although Dottie hung back, not one of the dogs growled. Outside, all three of them came up to him for treats readily, with Flower not giving a second thought to putting her paw on his knee. John held Candy for a while later. She seemed content. He also pet Dottie, and she let him, but she looked the other way the entire time.

Shih Tzu Day 67: Scaredy Dog, Cats & Grooming

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scaredy shih tzu dog

I got up with the shih tzus this morning to let them out and feed them so John could sleep. For the next few hours, I worked on some ad copy for a client, with Dottie beside me and Candy and Flower at shih tzu Central.

When John got up, we took the shih tzus back outside. Flower was sitting on the porch when a motorcycle started up. Our scaredy shih tzu jumped up and ran for the door, pushing it open to get inside as fast as she could, with Dottie not far behind. As usual, Candy had the opposite reaction. She stood where she was, looking towards the fence, an inquisitive look on her face.

Flower gets an “A” on the grooming table

shih tzu after partial grooming. We put Flower up on the grooming table, because I’ve been noticing how wild she’s been looking lately, particularly her face. We went through the routine with the hot dog, letting her smell it to associate it with grooming. She didn’t take a piece, but when John started clipping her, she stayed completely still. We don’t have a grooming arm yet, so I held her in one place, but she didn’t fight me or John during the grooming process. We clipped a lot of her body and tidied up her face. The next time we groom her, we’ll work on her paws again and clip her nails. I was very proud of her. It was quite different from when she got kicked out of grooming school or our earlier attempts to groom her.

Backyard Intruder

shih tzu looking at cat in backyard.John and I went out to lunch and to run some errands, including looking for a new carpet to replace our beautiful, western carpet, from which we can’t seem to extract the urine odor. We decided to look for something cheap and small that we could stick in the washing machine. We found one we both liked at Kohl’s. I wasn’t sure about the size, and when we got it home, I thought it was way too small. We talked some more, and we decided to cover ever inch of our western carpet front and back with pet cleaning solution and then rinse it with the hose as well as we could.

three shih tzus chase a cat away.While we were outside, Flower spotted an intruder in the backyard. A stray cat was sitting on the landscaping timbers, putting her out of Flower’s reach. We put up a fence to prevent the dogs from climbing up into the landscaped area and possibly escaping out of the fence between us and our backyard neighbor.

Flower got as close as she could and barked like crazy. The grey cat just sat there aloofly, staring at Flower. Her barks finally pulled Dottie and Candy away from what they were doing, and they came running. That moved the cat to cross into the neighbor’s yard and the girls finally calmed down.

Shih Tzu Day 53: Happy Birthday, Dad

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Swim Day with Grandpa J

If I sit really still, the visitors will think I'm a shoe and leave me alone. Dottie, Flower and Candy The dogs were home alone a lot today. It is John’s birthday, and instead of a typical birthday present, I gathered coupons for free birthday meals. We started out the day by going to IHOP for breakfast. We came home and spent a few hours with the girls before going back out for lunch at Noodles.

While we were at lunch, Leticia and her children and Gabe, Crystal and Avi arrived at the community pool. We told them we’d come by later with our camera, because I wanted to get pool pics of all the kids. We had a pool party for John’s birthday last year, but then, we both swam. We didn’t feel like getting wet this year.

Do we really have to have visitors?I knew that Flower, Dottie and Candy wouldn’t like the grandchildren to raid their house after the pool party, so I told everyone we would set up the ping pong table outside and visit out there. However, they wanted to come inside and say hi to the dogs. As soon as they came in, Candy ran upstairs to hide.I found her later hiding in John’s side of the closet. She must have thought she’d look like a shoe and would go unnoticed. It reminded me of a famous scene from “ET,” where ET hides in the closet. As for Flower and Dottie, they stayed in their corner, growling their unwelcome.

Is he going to pull another treat out of that bag or not?After everyone left, we gave the girls some privacy. I had one more phase left of my birthday present to John, which was dinner out at Macaroni Grill. When we came home, we took the girls outside for their nighttime treat and romp in the grass, before settling down on the couch, with Dottie beside me, to watch a few episodes of The Dog Whisperer.

Shih Tzu Day 52: A New Visitor

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My Sister-in-Law Visits the Shih Tzus

John’s sister Lynda called this morning and said she’d been reading my blog and that she wanted to come over and meet the dogs. Lynda is a quiet, gentle person who has several cats. I figured she wouldn’t be as much of a threat to the shih tzus as the grandchildren or even teenagers are.

Flower, Candy and Dottie eyed her suspiciously when she came in, but they seemed fairly calm. I gave her some treats to try to feed them while we were inside. Dottie approached her tentatively, but took a treat. Flower and Candy kept their distance. I thought they might do better outside, so I opened the back door and they scurried out. Dottie was still the only one who would take a treat.

Once we went back inside, I was able to catch Candy, and Lynda held her for a while. She might not have enjoyed it, but she didn’t fight it. Baby steps.

 

 

 

Shih Tzu Day 37: Candy The Lap Dog – Kind Of

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Candy, the sort of lap dog

I have been wondering how the shih tzus would handle their next round of company: my mother, her niece, Becky, visiting from Midland, Texas; her daughter, Teresa; Teresa’s 16-year-old daughter, Heather, and her 19-year-old son, Alex.

When the visitors first arrived, the shih tzus exhibited their normal unsocial behavior. Candy fled to her corner in the dining room, beyond the table and chairs. Flower ran from Shih Tzu Central, jumped up onto my couch, jumped back down and ran to hide behind the dining table. And, yes, she did leave a trail of poop behind her, particularly on the couch where I had been planning on having my guests sit. I explained her problem and went around the living room and dining room, picking up poop.

Dottie stayed at Shih Tzu Central, growling her disapproval. It always surprises me when she growls, since she is so passive. Shiloh, of course, wandered around visiting everyone personally.

All of our guests are dog people. Heather and Alec attempted to get to know all of the shih tzus. Dottie eventually took treats from them, but the other two kept their distance.

I did something I hadn’t ever attempted to do. I went and got Candy, picked her up and held her on my lap, even though, like her sisters, she is not a lap dog. She stayed there, calmly, for at least thirty minutes, before letting me know she was tired of company. When I let her down, she wandered back to the corner in the dining room, where she could watch at a comfortable distance. I explained to our company that, regrettably, none of the girls were lap dogs.

who stole the Milo’s Kitchen chicken jerky?

While our visitors were here, we watched YouTube dog videos they told us about. One particularly funny one was about a guy trying to find out which of two dogs had stolen the cat’s treats. The video was even more appropriate after I returned from a late lunch.

When I walked in the living room, I spotted a torn and empty Milo’s Kitchen chicken jerky bag on the floor. I realized that after letting Alec and Heather try to bribe the dogs, I hadn’t put away the treats. I don’t know where they had put them, but someone had found them. I thought that the 18 oz. bag had been at least half full.

I assume that the shih tzu sisters shared the bag, while poor Shiloh, in his kennel, had to watch them have all the fun without him. What surprised me was that none of them exhibited signs of an upset stomach. Of course, no one confessed to the crime.

Shih tzu poopy

While I was cleaning up poop earlier, my mother commented that she never expected to see me cleaning up after animals. I agree. This is all new to me. John was the one who mostly cared for Joey, a genuine lap dog.

I definitely am getting a lot of experience in the clean up area now. After company left, I had to give Flower’s back half a bath. After using plenty of shampoo and water and using the scissors to cut out some particularly problem areas, Flower was back to normal. I only hope I can keep her that way for a while.

I also made a discovery today. I know that at least one shih tzu uses the training pad regularly. I know Dottie does, although she gets as much on the carpet as the pad. This evening, I watched Flower squat down right next to the pad. I ordered her to stop, but before I got there, she had done her business.

We still have plenty of work ahead of us, including housebreaking and creating a genuine lap dog or two!