Chauncey

My Shih-Tzu is a hand full. I named him after Chauncey Olcott, the Irish Tenor who wrote, sang, or collaborated on many of my favorite Irish ballads, because he’s a charming little rogue. His parents were show dogs with long lineages, which means he’s a real Shih-Tzu. All that means is that he doesn’t shed and is cute, really cute, but also a real pain in the butt. He wasn’t show quality, whatever that means, but he has all the traits of his ancestors. It takes forever times to teach him anything and then he only performs if he feels like it and I’m nice!

What I don’t tell many people is that I am so much easier to train than he is that I have to be careful.

Having grown up with a cat, he can leap four feet across the room horizontally, or easily up onto the couch, or any chair in the house. Yet he cannot jump up on anything to get himself into my bed. For a while he had me reaching down three and four times a night to retrieve him, but now, if he gets out of bed, he’s out of luck unless I get up too, which he has been known to provoke. Otherwise he is forced to sleep in his own cushy, well padded and warm little bed in the corner.

He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t have to. He just sits beside me with those owl-like eyes and sweet flat furry little face, looking like an Ewok who stepped off of Spielberg’s screen. If I ignore him, he will cock his head to one side and gaze up at me with those big sad eyes until I put a bit of food into his mouth. I try not to look at him, but he’s also been known to sob!

He’s almost four years old now, so unless we are playing, he sleeps a lot. Then he looks a lot like a large tribble. Like I said, he’s cute, really cute. He has to be.