So my family has two dogs.
Both Shih Tzus.
Who are two of the most ridiculous animals on the planet.
Don't get me wrong I adore them both to death and when I go see my family I snuggle them a lot and miss them tons when I leave.
But they have their quirks.
Tiger we got for Christmas, more or less, and she's the oldest.
And I mean that literally.
She is totally blind.
She is partially deaf.
She has arthritis and benign tumors all over her body.
And has licked one of back legs almost raw(we have to bandage it so she doesn't lick it).
Now, before you go feeling sorry for her, she's also got a snarky, crabby, independent personality that she's had since we got her. This dog is staying alive to spite us all.
And she had no qualms about showing off said snarky crabbiness whether the occasion called for it or not.
If you held her wrong, or played with her wrong(aka took her toy away before you were supposed to) or took away her food(including table scraps) you would know very quickly that you were in the wrong.
You would know, because she would bite you.
And I'm not talking a little nip either. I have scars from some of those bites.
Tiger also loved balls.
She wouldn't bring them back, but she loved it when you threw it and she could go get it. Then she'd put it between her paws and gnaw on it until she was ready for it to be thrown again.
Once I threw the ball under the couch and she went after it. This particular couch is low to the ground--low enough that Tiger had to belly crawl to get under the couch and get her precious ball--
--and she got stuck.
The idiot dog got stuck under the couch because she had a tennis ball in her mouth and wouldn't let go. For some reason the notion to let go of the ball so she could come out wasn't computing, and I eventually had to reach under and yank the ball out of her mouth so she could come out. Either that or you wait for her to sulk so you could drag first her and then the ball out from under the couch.
When we first got Tiger, whenever she wanted something, she would do this very distinctive sniff.
Not a sneeze, not a snort, almost like the she was blowing hot air to get attention from the idiots she lived with.
The twins called it her "hey stupid" sniff.
When she wanted outside, or food, or play or water or whatever, we got the "hey stupid sniff".
That was when she could see.
Now, when she needs something--including help finding her way into a room that she is clearly not in--she barks.
It's a very sharp,
very annoyed,
very demanding,
kind of pathetic sound.
She has no clue where she is, or where whatever she's looking for is, but she's not about to tell us she's lost because we're the stupid people, not her.
Because our Christmas tree will attack her.
We have a setup in our house where you can get to the kitchen/dining area through three different doorways, and we usually put our tree in one of said doorways, so that it's there but doesn't get in the way of everyone/everything else.
Problem: Tiger uses said doorway to get to the warmest room in the house.
Last Sunday, she tried to use said doorway to get to said room
and because she's stone blind she ran face first into the tree
which was not supposed to be there.
So Tiger backed up to go in a different direction.
Second problem: she was standing between two branches.
And when she backed up she got poked from behind by the tree.
So she went forward again and got a face-full of pine needles,
and then a tail-full of pine needles
and that's when I picked her up and carried her to the room she was looking for.
Stubborn adorable little muttfuzz.
Mai Yin is the baby dog.
And I mean that literally--she has the permanent personality of a two-year old.
She doesn't growl, she doesn't yip, she cries.
About everything.
She thinks in extremes: everything is awesome or everything is horrible.
She panics when she wakes up to an empty room, because the world has ended and no one loves her anymore.
Granted, there are exception. Mai Yin is a lap dog and she's not as feisty as Tiger so when little kids want to hold her or carry her around she just--lets them. But even she has her limits. One Thanksgiving after relatives went home she did this
Don't get me wrong, she's utterly adorable and I love her to death, but there are times that she's too busy being kind to be intelligent.
For instance, it is currently freezing as all get out here so we put the dogs in doggie coats and jackets so they won't freeze.
Mai Yin refuses to wear them,
but she will shiver cause she's cold and makes no connection with sweater=warm
She also has one of the most expressive tails I've ever seen. We can always tell what she's up to based on that tail.
When she's happy it's up and wagging.
When she's relaxed or sad, it droops.
And when she's doing something that she probably shouldn't it sticks straight out.
This sticking straight out usually happens when she had metal in her mouth.
Yep. Metal.
Paper clips, straight pins, safety pins, needles, BBs, you name it, if it's metallic, it goes in her mouth.
When she first started doing this, all we had to do was get hold of her and finger sweep the object out.
But the little minx decided to have a bout of intelligence one day and figured out that if she moved the object under her tongue then we could open there mouth and--surprise! nothing there!
So then, one person has to hold her still and hold her mouth open
and the other one has to lift her tongue to pull the metal out of her mouth.
Cardboard too, that's another thing she loves to play with.
When the toilet paper rolls are empty, instead of throwing them away, we give them to Mai Yin.
Then, once she's chewed them to shreds, we toss them in the garbage.
One Christmas she got hold of one of my Ugg boot boxes(which are huge, btw) and she chewed on that for three months.
And apparently, my dogs aren't the only amusing canine's on the planet. Follow the links below to hear about Jeff Dunham's Canine Companions.
https://vimeo.com/185249890
https://vimeo.com/185250336
Happy Holidays y'all!!!!
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