So, for those of you that don’t know, MP and I have a new arrival coming this evening to our household. We’ve decided to get a new Shih Tzu pup that we’re picking up from a breeder out in Salinas, CA. I’ve got a few breeder photos of him, but I’ll wait to post something until we get him home.
In terms of names, we’re leaning towards Bogart. Again, we’re going to need to wait to see how things play out this weekend to see if this name is appropriate. The amount of preparation that we’ve had to do is a lot more than I recall.. but then again I was twelve the last time I had a puppy in the house. Also, there’s so much involved to actually raising it in order to ensure that it turns out correctly. So much more than feed it twice a day and take it for walks. It’ll be excellent practice for having kids, and we’re looking forward to the challenge.
I think the most amazing thing is that our lives, from this day forward, are going to completely change. We’re going to have someone else to think about whenever we decide to do something. Be it go to the movies or make a trip to the East Coast (EC) and even my morning routine. Better yet, when I think about the average life span of the typical Shih Tzu, it’s about 15 years or so.. tacking 15 years onto my life right now, knowing that this little guy is going to be here throughout this whole period is just mind-blowing.
In a nutshell, we’re so very excited about the new member of the family and I’ll be sure to post pics as soon as I get them. My digital camera is currently in the shop, but we bought a few disposables to captures the exciting moments of the next week or so.
buy him booties – shitzus hate to go to the bathroom in the roain!
LTJ and I are taking the raising of our new puppy very seriously. So far we have 3 books on the subject, one is the official Shih Tzu book from the American Shih Tzu Club, another is a book for the first 5 months of raising your puppy and the other is the Dummies guide to dog training.
All of these books pretty much say the same thing: praise it when it does something good; don’t scold it unless you catch it in the act of doing something bad. Of course, I don’t think my family ever took this approach with our dog Buddy and look how he turned out, a complete hellion on 4 legs!
The hardest thing is going to do as the books say and remain calm and even toned with it. I am sure it is going to be hard for us not to gah-gah over Bogart all the time, but according to the books that can be very detrimental to his development.
I just hope we are a good mommy and daddy ;-)
We’ll keep you posted on how it goes, especially the housebreaking!
I will have you wrapped around my little paw. I will soil your carpet and yet you still will adore me!
The dog we had when I was a kid was named Buddy, too. Talk about an unoriginal name. But, hey, even President Clinton named his dog Buddy, so I guess great minds think alike.
I want a Great Dane. Seriously. I don’t think they live for 15 years, however, so I’m not sure how I feel about that. I need to find out if they’re rugged and able to wrestle, because that’s what I want in my dog. A giant, regal wrestling opponent who will eat me out of house and home.
I think you are pretty much guaranteed those things with a Great Dane.
I remember when I canvassed for MASSPIRG and I went up to this house and this little old lady answered the door and around the corner came running this giant Great Dane. The dog was taller than the lady. It was pretty scary. She wanted to donate, but I was like that’s ok, I’ll just leave the pamphlet here at the door and you can mail in your membership donation and high-tailed it out of there. The dog was going crazy at the door… I was afraid he would break through it!
Actually, I used to be deathly afraid of dogs. I’m not sure why but until I canvassed for PIRG I was. I only got over my fear through canvassing, because for an entire summer all I did was walk around neighborhoods all day knocking on doors, and if there’s one thing you learn from doing that is how many houses have dogs. You have to learn how to approach them calmly and most importantly SHOW NO FEAR. It’s unbelievable how easily they can sense it on you.
I didn’t have any problems that whole summer and finally I was able to get over my fear.